The Stockman's Secret Read online

  Blinking back tears, she slipped the silky black robe from her shoulders and it fluttered to her feet. Her gaze snagged on the faint scar across her stomach, the one left by Levi’s knife, and she trailed her fingers, featherlike, over it. After seven years at a university down south, Levi Muller had returned to nab the position as Little Heart’s resident doctor four years ago. She always crossed the street if she saw the vile man heading towards her, and would rather die than seek out his medical assistance. Thank god he lived in the neighbouring town of Grander. Avoidance of him was the only saving grace, her way to pretend that he didn’t exist. But try as she might to block it out, the haunting memory of that horrific night jolted her breath when, just beyond the door, footfalls sounded. She snapped back to the moment and grabbed her robe, tugging it back on.

  Her husband swung the door open, but it didn’t stop her racing heart. Lachlan silently closed the distance between them, his hands going straight to his relentless focal point: her breasts. The stench of booze clung to him, as did the overpowering scent of spicy aftershave.

  Juliette fought not to recoil from him – she detested when he was drunk. ‘Did your dinner meeting run later than expected again?’ she asked a little scornfully.

  ‘Yup, it did, Sherlock.’ Without offering any further explanation, he parted her robe and shoved it from her shoulders, took one breast in each hand and squeezed. ‘It’s about that time of the month again, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is, but I got my period early,’ she lied, disgusted with the thought of touching him, of him touching her, especially when he was inebriated. It seemed to be the only time he came near her. Was she so repulsive?

  He flashed her a scolding glance. ‘Oh, for god’s sake.’ He sighed, swore beneath his breath. ‘So now we have to wait another month to try?’ He looked at her as if this was all her fault.

  Feeling exposed, Juliette snatched up her robe from the floor. ‘Afraid so.’ She blinked back hot tears as she pulled it on, the desire to pound his chest with her clenched fists almost overwhelming her. She longed for a child but wasn’t about to try when Lachlan was so drunk. ‘I’m sorry.’ Her tone was artificially subdued – a fight would do her no good at all. She turned, tugged her robe in so tight the neckline had a stranglehold on her throat, and then busied herself by rearranging the bottles of perfume on her dresser. ‘Why did the meeting run so late?’

  ‘I was closing a deal with one of the councillors and got caught up having drinks to celebrate.’ He unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it off. ‘Not that it’s really any of your business what I do when I’m working.’

  ‘If you haven’t gone and forgotten, I am your wife, Lachlan.’ Although wanting it to sound forceful, her voice was distant, hollow – the way she felt around him.

  ‘Oh, here we go again. Nagging, bitching and moaning.’ He glared at her before storming towards the half-open door. ‘I’m too tired for this. I’m going to sleep in the spare room.’

  ‘Don’t you mean your room,’ she cried after him. The slam of the door down the hall was his only response.

  Juliette bit back a sob. She got nothing from him, none of what every woman deserved – no respect, no kindness, no love. Staring at her reflection once again, she shook her head. She kept longing for a shift in his attitude, for him to notice her, to care for her like he had right back at the beginning, when he’d chased her, wooed her, wanted her. When had he stopped wanting her? Had he ever truly loved her?

  Maybe not …

  She’d fallen back to earth with a jolt. It wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t going to be the husband she longed for, a man to share her life with. Not now. Not ever. Unless some kind of miracle happened – and she wasn’t holding her breath for that. She needed to find out, once and for all, what was going on with him. But how? Slumping to the edge of the bed, she dropped her head in her hands and allowed the sobs she’d been holding back all day to surface.

  * * *

  Juliette glanced at Zoe Hunter, her best friend since they’d sat beside each other in church, concentrating behind the wheel. This was crazy. A snap decision spurred on by one too many wines over their last weekly catch-up before Zoe left to go overseas. But … could Zoe’s hunch be right? Was her world about to be turned upside down?

  Struggling to hold herself together, she closed her eyes for the shortest of moments and drew in a deep breath. If the drive down the winding Kuranda Range hadn’t been hairy enough, with Zoe taking the corners as if rally driving, they were now in the thick of rush hour. The traffic lights just up ahead turned amber. Would they make it before the red light? With Lachlan a few cars ahead, if Zoe stopped, they were going to lose sight of him. Juliette couldn’t bear the thought.

  ‘Hang on tight, hun, I’m going to risk it.’ Fuelled by adrenaline, Zoe floored it, barely making it through before the traffic behind them came to a standstill.

  A tattoo-covered bloke on a motorbike in the lane beside them gave them the thumbs up, and Zoe, cheeky gal, grinned brazenly back at him. The more cautious one of their duo as they were getting older, Juliette bit her tongue – now wasn’t the time to lecture Zoe for her notoriously wild driving. Instead, she braced her feet into the floor and gripped her seat with both hands. It would be really bad luck if they found themselves involved in an accident, not just because the car was on loan from a friend so they could remain incognito but because they couldn’t afford to be waylaid.

  ‘You doing okay over there?’ Zoe asked as she turned down the radio, the announcer’s annoyingly nasally and overly happy voice fading.

  ‘Uh-huh. At least, I think so,’ she lied, forcing a wobbly half-smile. ‘This really sucks.’

  ‘I know, hun, but at least you can put your mind to rest, either way.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose so.’ Juliette knew she couldn’t go through this kind of caper again, and she needed to know the truth behind her failing marriage, once and for all. Her fingers tense in her lap, she stared at the back of her husband’s brand spanking new four-wheel drive – a perk of his government job – now five car-lengths ahead of them. Lachlan appeared to be in a rush, as if he was late for a very important date. She prayed she was wrong.

  They quickly reached the first of five roundabouts that kept the traffic flowing along the highway leading into the main hub of Cairns. Lachlan briefly vanished out of sight as he navigated around the bend, and Juliette craned her neck to keep him within her sight. Her stomach tumbled again with the thought of where his final destination might be.

  ‘Call him, hun.’ Zoe’s authoritative voice snapped her from her internal chatter.

  Juliette turned to catch Zoe’s compassionate look. ‘You mean now?’ she stuttered.

  Zoe nodded. ‘Yes, right now.’

  ‘What do I say if he answers?’ Eyes wide, she looked to Zoe’s hands gripping the steering wheel, her knuckles white. She was so very lucky to have a friend who cared so much about her.

  ‘Just keep it simple. Ask him if he’ll be home for dinner.’

  Juliette’s pulse took off like a bull at a gate. ‘I can’t.’ She shook her head as she wrung her hands tighter.

  ‘Why not? You call him all the time. Why’s this time any different?’

  ‘Apart from the obvious fact we’re tailing him? I don’t know if I can pull it off.’ Her voice drifted in a hushed whisper as she thought about it for a moment. ‘I’ve never been too good at telling lies.’ Even though she’d kept two huge secrets from everyone – for good reason. And secrets were different to lies.

  ‘You’re not lying by asking him when he’ll be home for dinner, babes.’ Keeping one eye on the road, Zoe’s tone was reassuring, comforting. ‘Trust me, you’re way tougher than you give yourself credit for. You got this.’

  Juliette sniffled and centred herself. Zoe was right. She could do this. ‘Yup, okay. I’ll do it.’ She grabbed her mobile from her handbag, dialled her husband’s phone number, and pressed it to her ear.

  Zoe switched off the radio. �
��Put it on loudspeaker so I can hear it too.’

  Juliette did as Zoe asked. It rang four times. One more ring and then it’d go to message bank. She held her breath …

  ‘Hey.’ Lachlan’s voice made her jump.

  ‘Hey, yourself. How’s your day going?’ A hornet’s nest of alarm buzzed inside of her.

  ‘Yeah, not too bad, I suppose. Just busy, as always.’ He sounded a million miles away.

  Her mouth feeling as if it were filled with cottonwool, she looked to Zoe for a shot of courage and got it in spades. ‘Sorry to bother you at work, I was just calling to see if you’d be home for dinner tonight. I thought I’d cook your favourite – lamb chops, honey carrots and a potato bake.’

  Zoe gave her the thumbs up and mouthed, Good one.

  ‘Oh, sorry, Jules. I’m stuck behind this damn desk, and by the looks of the pile of paperwork I have to get through before the weekend is over, I’m not going to be able to make it home in time. Can I take a raincheck?’ he added smoothly.

  Oh, he was good. He was very, very good, at least when he was sober.

  Bitter disappointment coursed through her. ‘Of course.’ The full implications of his words sinking in painfully, Juliette steeled herself, sucking in a quick, calming breath. ‘Will you be home later, or are you going to crash at the office again?’ A faint thread of hysteria almost stole her voice but a quick squeeze of her arm from Zoe gave her all she needed to stick with it.

  ‘To be honest, I reckon I might be here all night, otherwise I don’t know how I’m going to get it all done.’ He cleared his throat. ‘With election day only two months away, I can’t go dragging the chain. As you know, every vote counts.’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘Yup, I know the drill real well.’ Anger churned in her stomach and she forcibly had to stop herself calling him out on his deceitfulness. ‘I guess I’ll just see you when I see you then.’ She didn’t need to try to sound upset – she was, deeply. All the plans she’d made for their future, the ones that had kept her pushing through every day for so long, were suddenly gone.

  ‘Yeah, sorry, Juliette, but it’s out of my hands.’

  Juliette swallowed down hard, refusing to let her emotions overwhelm her. ‘Uh-huh. I understand. Love you,’ she choked out, her cheeks heating with both humiliation and anger. She did still love him. How could she not after being his wife for the past ten years?

  ‘Yup, love you too.’ There wasn’t an ounce of emotion in the words, and it hit her that there hadn’t been for a long, long time.

  Unable to say another word, she grabbed the chance to end the call before she called him out on his bullshit. Tossing her phone back into her handbag, she took a few long moments to gather herself enough to speak. ‘You’re right, Zoe. He’s a lying, cheating, callous bastard.’

  ‘Oh, hun, I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve this crap.’ Soft and compassionate, Zoe’s tone made her want to burst into tears even more. ‘Damn men. All they seem to do is break our hearts. I don’t know why we bother with them. They’re nothing but bloody trouble.’

  ‘Because we need them to have children.’ Juliette almost laughed but, fearful of what she might be about to discover, released a muffled sob. ‘But a fat lot of good that’s doing for me.’

  ‘We don’t need a man to have children these days, you know. There is such a thing as sperm donation clinics.’

  Juliette grimaced. ‘Each to their own, but that’s not an option for me, Zoe. I don’t want to be a single mother.’ Looking down at her wedding ring, she shook her head. ‘I want my children to have a loving father. I want to be in a loving family. If Lachlan could find it in himself to go back to what we had when we were happy … maybe we’d have a chance to make this marriage work?’

  ‘I know you do. It’s been your dream for as long as I can remember. My brother made a big mistake, taking off like he did. He should have stayed and fought for you,’ she grumbled, shaking her head. ‘You would’ve made such beautiful babies together.’

  ‘Ha, yeah, we probably would have,’ Juliette said with a little chuckle, even as that old familiar sense of loss and hurt resurfaced.

  Zoe kept one hand on the steering wheel and reached the other out to comfort her. ‘You just hang in there, hun, okay? I’ve got your back.’

  ‘Thanks. I’m trying to,’ she replied, squeezing back the tears and then digging her fingertips into the points above her eyes where her head felt as if it was about to implode. ‘I just hope my instincts are wrong and we’re clutching at straws. Maybe he has a really good excuse for lying through his damn teeth.’

  Zoe offered her a sad smile, her extended silence saying everything Juliette didn’t want to hear. Juliette had been watching things fall apart for longer than she cared to remember, and she was tired of making excuses for her husband’s actions, of driving herself around the bend trying to figure him out. And she was absolutely sick of placing all the blame on herself, and of trying to change everything she said or did in the hopes that he might pay her some genuine attention. Along the way, she’d lost who she really was – she knew that now. She needed to know the truth, as cold and as hard as it might be.

  Hitting the brakes, Zoe took a sharp left off the Captain Cook Highway. ‘Far out, talk about not giving us much notice. Looks like he’s headed into the city.’

  Lachlan was only three cars ahead now. Juliette nodded. ‘Just make sure you don’t get too close, hey? We don’t want to go blowing our cover.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll hang back.’ The traffic slowing, Zoe eased off the accelerator for what felt to Juliette like the first time in the hour and a half they’d been trailing him. Two more turns and they were cruising along the Cairns Esplanade. The crystal water lapped at the edges of lush green gardens, and the joggers and dog-walkers dotted the footpaths, all backdropped by a beautiful summer’s day. How could such a peaceful scene exist when Juliette felt such turmoil? The oceanfront two-bedroom apartment she and Lachlan had bought a year before as an investment, renting it out to holidaymakers, was just up ahead. Surely he wouldn’t be going to spend the weekend there without her … would he?

  Just as she suspected, the brake lights lit up on his four-wheel drive and Lachlan indicated to turn into Crystalrock, one of Cairns’ swankiest new holiday apartment buildings. She clutched at the possibility he was here on business. But why would he not tell her that? Zoe’s grave expression matched the negative thoughts racing through Juliette’s mind. She tried hard to not jump to any conclusions as they turned into the building’s parking lot, making sure to keep a comfortable distance between them and Lachlan.

  With shallow, panicked breaths, she watched her husband disappear into the underground parking lot. ‘Don’t follow him, Zoe. Just park out here, please.’

  ‘What now, hun?’ Zoe asked as she parked and switched off the engine.

  ‘I’ve got every right to be here, so I’m going to go in. It’s probably best you wait here.’ Juliette’s voice trembled, as did her hands as she grabbed her handbag and stepped out.

  Zoe dipped her head and peered out at her through the passenger window. ‘You sure you don’t want me to come?’

  ‘I wish you could, but it’ll be easier to stay incognito if it’s just me.’ She leant on the windowsill. ‘And as much as I appreciate you doing this with me, I feel like I need to do this bit on my own.’

  Zoe nodded. ‘Okay, but only if you’re certain. Just make sure you stay out of sight and call me if you need me. I’ll be right here.’

  ‘I will.’ So she couldn’t chicken out, or burst into tears, Juliette spun on her heel and strode towards where a concierge was standing by the automatic doors. ‘Thank you,’ she said, as he ushered her inside with a smile.

  As soon as she stepped into the impressive lobby, she spotted Lachlan through a crowd of Japanese tourists at the check-in desk. Pen poised, his back to her, he was signing something. She pretended to be checking out a stand of travel brochures, staying just out of his line of sight
, but keeping him in hers. Her heart was beating so hard she could almost swear every man, woman and child in the near vicinity could hear it. She honestly had no idea what she was going to do if Lachlan caught her following him. Less than a minute later, and after a quick nod to the receptionist, he tucked some paperwork into his trouser pocket and made for the lifts, his head buried in his phone, the smile on his face one she hadn’t seen in a very long time.

  She watched him disappear into the lift and waited. She didn’t need to follow him – she knew the apartment number he’d be headed to. Ten long minutes passed by as she paced the lobby, eyeing every attractive woman in the process, assessing whether they’d be heading upstairs to screw her husband. She teased the time out until she could wait no longer. Heading over to the front desk, she smiled to the friendly receptionist, taking note of her name badge.

  ‘Hello, Regan. I’ve come to spend the weekend with my husband in our apartment, and I just need to pick up a room key.’

  ‘Yes, sure. Your name?’ Standing at a computer, the young woman had her hands at the ready.

  ‘Juliette Davis.’ Every one of her nerve ends shuddered as she held her breath.

  ‘Ah, here we are.’ Regan peered up. ‘Have you got some ID for me?’

  Juliette released the breath silently. ‘Yes, sorry. It’s been a long day.’ She fumbled in her handbag, grabbed her purse, and plucked out her licence.

  The young lady graciously took it from her. ‘Well, thankfully, it’s a Friday. And you’ve got the apartment for the entire weekend. How lovely.’ She beamed a white-toothed smile.

  ‘Yes, I’m looking forward to putting my feet up, with a nice glass of wine or two,’ Juliette said, smiling through gritted teeth.

  Regan handed the licence back, along with a digital key. ‘Here we are. Enjoy that glass of wine or two.’ She offered another friendly smile.

  Juliette returned it forcefully. ‘I will, thank you.’ And off she strode, a woman on a mission.