Darkening Skies Part 23

If he hadn't looked so grey and exhausted, if the wound on his side wasn't still seeping, she'd have argued with him. But he must be almost at the end of his endurance and it did make sense for her to run for help. Besides, of the two of them, he'd always been a far better shot.

He stepped out to cover her, firing a shot into the trees behind her as she sprinted towards the road, dodging through the edge of the scrub.

She could see the cars through the trees. Four cars. Relief flooded her to see the police markings. They'd stopped on the road and at least half a dozen officers in protective gear spilled out, taking defensive positions behind open doors, weapons drawn. She skidded to a halt thirty metres away as one of the windscreens shattered. The shot had come from in front of her, not behind her.

Two gunmen now, armed police ready to fire a and she was in the middle. She dropped down into a crouch, her breath coming in hard gasps from the run and her ankle throbbing. For long seconds she froze, undecided. Then she forced in a deep breath and stepped out into the open. Waving her arms to attract the police she screamed, 'We're here! Mark's hurt!' before she dropped low to the ground again.

In the protective gear and helmets she didn't recognise the first two who came running but she knew the third, a few metres behind them. Steve. He crouched beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. 'Jenn, it's okay, there's an ambulance not far away. Where's Mark?'

She wanted to collapse with the relief but she had to tell them what she knew. 'Mark's back that way a little. Gunshot in the side. He's walking but he's lost blood. There's at least two gunmen a one beyond Mark, one over that way. Five people, total, but I don't know where they all are. Dan Flanagan, Vanna, McCarty and two others. Some might be dead or injured at the convent.'

'Go find Mark,' he ordered the two others.

She started to scramble to her feet to go with them but Steve pulled her back down. 'Stay here. We're going to run for the car in a minute.' He spoke briefly on the radio, pa.s.sing on her information, ordering the officers by the cars to proceed with caution.

In the distance she heard over her thudding pulse the beat of a helicopter, coming closer. The police by the cars fanned out and began to move forward.

'Okay, Jenn a can you make a last dash for the cars with me?'

'Mark-'

They heard a shout, then a second call in return. Steve's radio hissed and a man's voice reported, 'Mr Strelitz located. Ambulance required.'

Ambulance required? Had he collapsed? Been shot again? She didn't wait for Steve but leapt to her feet and blundered back into the trees, running towards the movement she could see in the direction she'd left him. Running to Mark.

He sat on the ground, his back against a tree, eyes closed, one of the officers hunkered beside him pressing the makeshift pad against the wound, the other standing guard, weapon ready.

As she dropped to her knees, his eyes shot open. 'I'll be fine, Jenn,' he said, reaching with one hand to grip hers. 'But you need to get somewhere safer than here.' He looked up at Steve. 'Get her out of here, Steve. Please.'

Emotions crashing around her, she shook her head in a wordless refusal. Always, his first thoughts were for others, but no way would she leave without him. She knelt on the ground on the dead leaves and twigs and dirt and fought back tears, fought for control of herself. She couldn't cry. She wouldn't cry. She had to hold it together, get through the rest of this. Be strong enough to love him. Strong enough to leave him. Because he could have died and she had no knowledge or ability to deal with how lost and vulnerable that made her feel.

Birraga hospital. Again. A young doctor she didn't recognise a she'd have remembered the purple spiked hair and the nose stud a took her in hand while Morag Cameron directed Mark's gurney to an examination cubicle and pulled the curtains closed.

'I'm Abby,' the young woman said, kindness in her eyes as she skimmed over Jenn's grubby, scratched, bloodied appearance. 'I've come up from Dubbo hospital to help out. Let's check you over and see how you are.'

Jenn ran her gaze around the emergency room. 'Rhonda a the nurse-'

'In police custody.' Abby's arm on her shoulder gently steered her towards a bed. 'She's no threat to you now. Hop up on the bed here. Is it okay if I take your blood pressure and examine you? You've got a fair few scratches and bruises.'

Her attention still half on the curtained cubicle beyond, Jenn acquiesced to the doctor's request. Disproving the stereotypes of the stud and the spikes, the young woman's compa.s.sion and professionalism impressed her, and almost enabled her to unwind some of the tension that still gripped her.

'The Dungirri children a how are they doing?' Jenn asked while the blood pressure cuff tightened around her arm.

'Most went home this morning. We've still got two in, for observation for a little longer. The children who were taken to other towns are all doing well. The two teachers who were flown to Sydney are listed as serious, but that's better than critical.' She noted the monitor readings on the chart. 'I'd like to put in a cannula, give you a litre or two of fluid. Is that all right?'

The familiar panic fluttered in Jenn's chest. 'I'm not ... I don't want to stay. I'm not hurt and this place ...' Reduces me to a scared kid.

'I don't think you'll need to stay overnight. But if you can manage an hour or so while we rehydrate you, you'll feel a lot better. And I can get you a cup of tea and some food if you feel up to it.'

An hour or so a she could do that. An hour or so and she should know how Mark was, should have her composure back after the adrenaline crash. Some fluids, a cup of tea and some sustenance and she might even feel human again.

Steve arrived as the young doctor attached the second bag of intravenous fluid to Mark's drip. He hadn't needed a transfusion, and for that he was grateful. Jenn fidgeted, restless in the chair beside his bed, unable to settle. She had some colour back in her face and she'd eaten a light meal but she refused a second litre of fluid for herself and he knew she itched to escape.

He didn't blame her. He, too, wanted to be out of here, somewhere quiet and peaceful. Alone with Jenn.

Steve dragged a chair over and collapsed into it. 'You two are looking a whole lot better. And I've got good news for you. McCarty and the two other guys are in custody. They're on their way to Dubbo hospital but one of the guys is wide awake and talking fast. Dan and Vanna a they won't hurt anyone again.'

'They're dead?' Mark asked. He knew the answer but needed to hear it.

'Yes. Dan bashed Vanna pretty badly. She didn't make it. It seems that McCarty shot Dan, trying to stop him, and Dan was dead when we got there.'

Vanna and Dan both dead. Mark wished he could feel more relieved. They wouldn't harm anyone else now, but the repercussions of their decades of influence in the district would take a long time to alleviate. Too many damaged people, too much damaged trust. How could lives and relationships be healed?

'How did you find us?' he asked Steve, because that question might be easier to answer.

'Your parents emailed me late last night, Mark. You've probably got one as well. They're on their way back and will be here tomorrow morning, but they attached a full statement. The convent's on one of the original Flanagan holdings; Sister Brigid said that Dan's great-grandfather donated the land for it. First thing this morning Kris spoke with a couple of the women you identified and they told us exactly where it was. They all have similar stories to your mother's.'

His mouth still dry, Mark asked, 'Which is?'

'Back when all this started, in the seventies, your folks went to the club a few times. Apparently it seemed pretty harmless then a music, some drugs, no-one raising an eyebrow about s.e.x. But they met McCarty, and he blackmailed your mother over her father's debts, and the s.e.x and domination frightened her. When Len found out there was a fight, him against McCarty, Flanagan and a few others. He was knocked out, doesn't remember the end of it. But years later, when your parents and Flanagan were deep in business rivalry, photographs were sent to Caroline. Photos of Len in bed with a woman who was tied up and beaten, along with newspaper reports of police finding her body a week after the fight, and threats to send the photo and witness statements to the police unless your mother complied with their demands. It seems that McCarty and Flanagan got their kicks from power games. Your father was besting them in business but they took s.e.xual control over his wife. And they enjoyed it.'

A spike of red-hot fury made it through Mark's numbness. 'b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.'

'No. That's too mild a word for them,' Jenn said, her eyes glinting with anger.

'The prints on the bottle used for the Molotov c.o.c.ktail a they're Mick's,' Steve continued. 'We found a phone on him and there are calls a a number of them a between that phone and Vanna's. The truck he was driving when he tried to run you off the road is an old one that used to be registered to Flanagan's Transport.'

'Vanna manipulated him?'

Mark saw the tension in Jenn's face. 'It's not hard to manipulate a mad alcoholic,' she said. 'And he never had much of a moral compa.s.s. I'm not sad he's dead.'

'Can't say I am, either,' Steve said. He glanced at his watch. 'I'm going to have to go. We'll need to get statements from you both, but that can wait until tomorrow. Oh, one last thing a Mark, I can tell you officially that there will be no charges over the initial accident and Paula Barrett's death. Everything we have strongly suggests the vehicle was tampered with and that's why you lost control of it. There's no evidence of culpability on your part. The a.s.sistant Commissioner will make a public statement announcing it later today.'

'But the blood-alcohol report a was it mine? I was here, in the hospital that night.'

'And so was Rhonda,' Jenn answered instead of Steve. 'Vanna told me that she got the blood from "an old alky". But I knew before then that it couldn't have been yours. It was too high a reading. You'd have been slurring, unsteady on your feet. Paula would never have gone in a car with you if that had been the case.'

Steve nodded in agreement. 'Gil says he saw no sign of impairment, Mark, and I have two witnesses who've come forward and said you were playing street cricket with them that evening, totally sober, before you left to pick up Paula. So you can rest easy on that now. I know I will.'

After Steve left, Mark strugged to find some clarity in the complex whirring of his thoughts. He hadn't caused the accident a but he still carried responsibility for the events of the previous days. 'I'm sorry, Jenn. All this has happened because I resigned so publicly. If I'd done it differently ... If I'd done it quietly, you'd never have been at risk. No-one would have died. Mick wouldn't have harmed anyone.'

'And the truth would still be buried.' She reached over and took his hand. 'You did what was right. You're not responsible for Mick's actions or anyone else's. There are women who will get some justice now. Gil has justice. Paula has justice.'

More grateful than he could express for her support, he rubbed his thumb gently against her hand. 'And you?'

'I have answers. About Paula. Even about my parents' deaths. Vanna admitted that she killed them. But, Mark ...' She gripped his hand tighter. 'I still have a lot of questions. About myself. And some of them are as scary as h.e.l.l. I need to take a little time to work through them.'

He had questions, too. Mostly about Jenn; about what they were to each other and what they could become. But he understood her need for time. The bond between them had lasted for eighteen years. He could wait another few weeks or months until they came to a decision about their futures.

The tougher question, the one haunting him since Vanna's comment about him being untouchable, was which man a Dan Flanagan, Gerard McCarty or Len Strelitz a had fathered him?

He remembered the date and year code on the first image of his mother with McCarty. Nine months before his birth. A month before his parents' marriage. McCarty had coerced her, and who knew what else had happened. And Dan Flanagan had always called him son ...

NINETEEN.

Mark was silent as the constable drove them towards Dungirri in the evening light. Jenn sat beside him in the back seat, and told the constable not to take the turn-off to Marrayin.

'You need to sleep, Mark,' she said quietly when he realised they'd pa.s.sed the turn. 'You're exhausted. We're both exhausted, with too much scope for nightmares. You can't be alone at Marrayin.' For her own need, as much as for his, she drew on her courage. 'There's a comfortable double bed at the pub. Are we friends enough to simply hold each other and sleep?'

She saw the tiny pause in his breathing, the slow exhale. 'Yes. If that's what you want.'

She entwined her fingers in his and rested her forehead against his shoulder, trusting him with her vulnerability in a way she'd trusted few others. 'It is. Just tonight. I know I'm asking a lot of you, but I don't want to face the nightmares alone.'

'I'll be there, Jenn,' he murmured into her hair. 'Close your eyes and sleep and I'll be right there beside you.'

And she could hear Mark's heart, feel the soft fabric of his T-shirt, the warmth of his arms around her, one hand gently cradling her head against him. Always and never, except for a few stolen moments that had to last.

She breathed deeply and slowly in her sleep, his shoulder her pillow, chestnut hair falling loosely over his arm that held her close to his side. Her hand rested lightly on his chest, and he enfolded it in his, her fingers instinctively curling into his. The sunlight streamed through the gap in the curtains. His parents would be here shortly but he was reluctant to break this moment, to wake Jenn and start the day and face others and lose the quiet joy of just being with her.

But he had to.

The wound in his side ached as he showered and dressed in borrowed clothes, but not as badly as the ache in his heart as Jenn withdrew from him. Although she kissed and hugged him before they went downstairs to meet up with his parents, it was affection, not love; any deeper feelings she might have had were hidden behind the smile that didn't make it to her eyes, and they went down the stairs side by side but not touching.

His parents waited in the courtyard, deserted at this hour of the morning although a tray with coffee cups and a plunger sat untouched on the table.

They embraced him, both of them, hard and tight and his mother's tears dampened his cheek as she kissed him.

His father cleared his throat. 'Mark, Jenn a I don't know how to apologise, what to say. I'm not the man you are, son. I should have faced them years ago. I should have gone to the police and faced the investigation, whatever it brought. But I didn't a and Caroline, you, so many others have paid for that. I don't deserve her. I don't deserve you.'

The pain and guilt in his father's eyes were familiar, but deeper now, and Mark recognised it for the load he'd always carried a maybe even the reason for the constant drive to serve others.

'I made my choices,' Caroline reproved her husband. 'You didn't make me do what I did, didn't know until afterwards. But I'm okay. I survived.' And she smiled, but it was forced and brave and never made it to her eyes.

'But I should have gone to the police then,' Len objected, and Mark wondered how often they'd gone around and around the same arguments. 'We might have had enough, with Wolfgang's help, to cast doubt on them.'

'There would have been false witnesses, Dad. They would have convicted and imprisoned you. Or worse. You know that. And that would have left Mum at their complete mercy. I don't know that I'd have done anything different.'

'You did do something different.' Len lifted his head high and met his gaze steadily. 'You went to the police and requested they reopen the investigation into Paula's death, despite what it might cost you. I've always been proud to be your father, but never more so than when I heard that.'

His father. Len's earnest gaze held his; brown eyes, eyelids creased at the edges, short once-brown hair framing an oval face. Mark's last doubt evaporated. He didn't need a DNA test to see the resemblance. He carried Len's genes, not any other man's.

Mark stayed by Jenn's side throughout the long day and the whole time awareness of him strummed constantly through her, winding her tight. They gave their statements to Leah Haddad at the Dungirri police station, and afterwards Kris made them coffee in her kitchen and told them the unofficial news a of more doc.u.ments found, and multiple versions of the image with Len and the murdered woman, but each with a different man. Half a dozen women blackmailed, at least, and Jenn wondered how many more traumatised lives McCarty and Flanagan had left.

She went with Mark and Caroline and Len out to Marrayin to survey the damaged homestead, but despite the confessions of the morning, they all kept discussions practical, focused on repairs and rebuilding, avoiding the personal and the painful. Emotionally exhausted, Jenn was grateful for that, and she stayed on the edges of the conversation, watching Mark's quiet, realistic planning for the gradual rebuilding of his home. It would take him months, and she wouldn't be here when it was done.

In the afternoon she went with Mark to a meeting in the pub to discuss the town's strategy for supporting the children and families in the wake of the bus accident. Although Frank Williams chaired it, Mark's un.o.btrusive leadership helped to keep the meeting on track, moving forward, his suggestions couched in terms that acknowledged the skills and built the confidence of others, so that they never seemed like his ideas. Although she watched from the sidelines, she found herself suggesting the format for a media release and agreeing to write it.

The official meeting closed, plans agreed on, but everyone seemed to stay on for a meal, for the affirmation of the sense of community. They made her welcome, too, tried to draw her in, but she craved time alone with Mark, and always, always, there were people around them and between them. His people, his community. He belonged there, committed to them, in a way she could never belong.

When night's darkness spread over the town, they climbed the stairs to her room at the pub, and Mark drew her close into his arms. Very close. He bent his head and rested his forehead against hers.

'You said a few days ago that I should put what I want first more often,' he said. 'This is what I want, Jenn.' He kissed her, slowly, deeply, and desire and need overcame fear so that she wrapped her arms around his neck and responded without hesitation.

'Your side ...'

'It's okay,' he said against her mouth.

She wanted to lose herself in s.e.x, in pa.s.sion and heat and l.u.s.t. But he didn't let her. Every slow, exquisitely tender kiss that he trailed across her mouth, the nape of her neck, on the pulse at her throat, asked for her awareness, her focus. She couldn't slide into an oblivion of physical pleasure. With every touch of his mouth, every caress, Mark gave himself to her, and asked the same in return.

Asked, not demanded. Did he know how that scared her? How she'd played and laughed and had s.e.x with other men but had never let them get close? How she'd never again found the joy of the long-ago afternoon with him?

His fingers brushed the swell of her breast through the light fabric of her shirt, pausing on the fluttering pulse of her heart.

Her body craved more; his hands, his mouth on her breast, his skin against hers and him with her, complete in her. Her heart recognised the question he asked. She kissed his mouth, long and gentle and uncertain.

'Do you know how strong you are, Jenn?' he murmured. 'Strong and beautiful and courageous.'

Courageous and strong ... was she? Was she brave enough to believe him, to let go and trust him, trust herself?

He held her close against his body, work-hardened lean muscle, firm arms around her that would not let her fall, his heart beating beneath her cheek, sure and even.

She slid her hand between them, slipped three b.u.t.tons of his shirt open and placed her palm over his heart, his skin warm under hers.

Courage. She pushed aside his shirt and rested her forehead against his bare chest while she drew breath, and then trailed kisses up to find his mouth again.

She found enough courage to hold back nothing a not her pleasure, not her emotion, not her desire to caress and touch and love his body, to accept the gifts of his hands and mouth and skin, the generosity of his heart, his love. Naked, they tumbled on to the cool white sheets of the bed, the pace intensely slow, every moment, every movement, every touch deliberate, aware. Intimate. When he'd caressed her almost to the edge of exquisite bliss, she gently pushed him to his back on the bed, held his hands captive by his sides, and, uncaring that her eyes filled with moisture, that she couldn't form a coherent word, she held his gaze, taking him inside her, focusing on his pleasure until her own desire blurred and there was nothing but the two of them and the depth of his eyes, and she cried out as the wave took hold of her, aware of nothing but ecstasy and Mark and the strength of his hands and falling with him, on to him, wrapped in the strength of him.

He held her as she slept, whispering a.s.surances when her body tensed and her breath hitched in her dreams, keeping her safe as best he could from the fears lurking in her subconscious. He loved her as he'd loved no-one else, the love of their youth deeper now, enriched by all they'd learned and become, by the possibility of what they could become, together. His heart belonged to her, and there would never be anyone else for him.

But he had no illusions. The nightmares of her past still haunted her, scars that hadn't healed holding her back from giving herself fully, risking her heart and her love. She would leave again.

He watched her eyelids flicker, brushed a kiss across her lips and she stirred and snuggled closer into him with a contented sigh. In her heart, she trusted him and loved him. He had no doubt of it. If he could ease her fears, help her discover her own strengths, there might be a future for them.

He planned to fight for that future. He planned to love her so gently, so deeply, that she'd always remember the joy of it. Although he couldn't leave Dungirri yet, in a few months, when the children and their parents no longer carried trauma in their eyes, when school reopened in the new year and the teachers returned from hospital, when the town could see hope and happiness again a then he could go to Moscow.

He had skills, experience and knowledge beyond running Marrayin a he could build a career for himself wherever she was. And though he'd miss the sunrises over Marrayin's paddocks and the contentment of his work there, the prospect of life away from his home unsettled him far less than the prospect of life without Jenn. His grandparents had built a new life together, far from their home. He could do the same with Jenn a if he could persuade her to trust her heart.

Four days later a four quiet days with Mark out at Marrayin, absorbed in the rhythms of companionable work during the day and nights together that almost tore apart her resolve a she delivered the eulogy for Jim. In the peace of the Dungirri cemetery among the trees, most of the town gathered for the simple service and she read the words Paul and Sean had written. They stood beside her, Sean's handcuffs hardly visible under the long sleeves of his good shirt, the prison guard a respectful distance behind.

Their words summed up the una.s.suming, well-lived life of a man who loved the land and worked hard, earning respect and friendship. Then they lowered him to rest in the earth next to his wife, and Paul and Chloe and then Calum dropped in some gum leaves, and Sean stood for a few moments, looking down, tears escaping.