Bronwyn Jameson - Zane: The Wild One

A baby was the one thing she had wanted, desperately, from her marriage, but Paul had wanted to wait a few more years. Paul had insisted they wait. And now she was fast approaching thirty, with no prospect of ever experiencing the joy of carrying a baby, of childbirth and motherhood.

“What if I can’t have one, Kree? What if I never do?”

Her voice sounded as empty as she felt, but there must have been something in her eyes, a trace of pain or the hint of a plea, because Kree sank down onto the arm of her chair.

“Oh, honey, there’s no need to think like that, not when you’ve never even tried.”

“By the time I do try, my ovaries will be all shriveled up.”

“Probably.” But there was compassion in her smile, and in her spontaneous hug. “But, hey, why do you need a baby? You have me to look after, and God knows I can be pretty immature.”

Julia couldn’t help but smile.

“And if you think not having a baby’s tragic, imagine if you had had one with Paul Petulant. What if the kid was just like daddy? Can you picture a two-year-old version of your ex-husband? The tantrums?” Kree gave a melodramatic shudder. “Honestly, Jules, you did not want that man’s child!”

She squeezed a little tighter before letting go and springing to her feet. Sitting still was not in Kree’s nature. Nor was dwelling on an issue.

“Enough of the sappy stuff—I feel like a drink. You gonna join me?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Come on,” she cajoled. “Let’s mix up something exotic, and then we can discuss your sex life.”

Julia rolled her eyes.

“Oh, that’s right. You don’t have a sex life, a small matter which will need remedying if you’re ever going to have that baby you yearn for.”

“I’m not about to go out and pick someone up just to get pregnant, if that’s what you’re implying. You know that’s not what I want.”

“Yeah, I know. All I’m saying is how do you expect to find this prince you so desperately want to marry and make babies with, when you spend half your life sitting around here? You need to get out more, have some fun, kiss a few frogs.”

“I’ve been meeting plenty of frogs.” I just haven’t been kissing any of them.

“Yes, well, your sister does seem to know her fair share.”

With the mood successfully lightened, Kree leaned down and tweaked Julia’s ponytail. “If you won’t try a new cocktail, how about trying a new colour?”

Julia started to shake her head.

“Oh, come on, Jules, this is exactly what you need. I could do you tomorrow after work. A decent cut, some red highlights—you’d be a new woman by nightfall.”

It wasn’t the first time Kree had begged to be let loose on Julia’s hair, but it was the first time Julia had been tempted. A new woman by nightfall. She liked the sound of that.

Sensing capitulation, Kree danced around the chair, talking colours and styles. All excited animation, she dragged her fingers through her own hair, and the spikes stood up like the Opera House sails. Julia shook her head firmly. What was she thinking?

“I’m sorry, Kree, but I like my hair the way it is.”

Kree studied her for a long, silent moment, her blue gaze uncharacteristically somber. “Yes, but do you like your life the way it is?”

“I don’t know,” Julia admitted honestly.

“Then I’ll keep that appointment free.”

Kree’s question hammered at Julia that night and right through the next day at work. There were aspects of her life she treasured. Her home, for one, and her close relationship with her family. Her many friendships, her standing in the community.

But if she were truly content, she wouldn’t have lain awake half the night mulling over other aspects of her life. She wouldn’t be accepting blind dates in the hope of finding another husband. She wouldn’t feel this yawning hollowness whenever she thought of her future without said husband and family. And she definitely wouldn’t be dwelling on the fantasy of being a new woman by nightfall. The last time she’d started thinking that way, she’d ended up with her navel pierced.

And was that a bad thing? Did she want to wear the label of Good Girl forever? Or did she want the stimulating buzz that came from shocking the unshockable?

If only she could find answers as easily as she found questions. By the time the store closed and she started dragging her feet home, Julia was no closer to those answers. As she neared Bill’s garage, her feet picked up their pace in time with her pulse, and it took a huge effort of willpower to prevent her gaze from raking the drive-through or peering into the yawning entrance to the workshop.

She could have saved herself the effort.

He wasn’t in the garage; he was in the street outside, talking to the driver of a flashy red car. Her surprise at finding him there brought her to a dead stop in the middle of the footpath.

Time seemed to hit that same brick wall as she took in his casual posture, one hand splayed on the roof, the other tapping a beat on the driver’s door. As usual, his hair picked up the glow of the sun and threw it back tenfold. As usual, her gaze caught on the hard outline of his arms, bared by a sleeveless black shirt. As usual, he looked so arresting, so vital, so male, that it took several of those long, slow-motion moments before anything else registered.

The anything else brought real time back with a sickening crash. The driver he seemed so cosy with was a woman…a woman who looked as fast and flashy as her car. A woman such as that wouldn’t have compromised on the tattoo. She wouldn’t hesitate about walking into a bar and buying a man a drink, especially a man who looked like Zane O’Sullivan.

Something fired deep in Julia’s stomach, something she didn’t wait to analyze but which cried New woman by nightfall as she turned on her heel, then kept up the chant all the way back to the main shopping center.

When she walked into Hair Today and selected a chair, Kree’s eyes boggled. “Tell me I’m hallucinating.”

“You are not to come anywhere near me with scissors,” Julia replied sternly. “And if you insist on red, fine, but only highlights. If you make it as red as Alice Pratt’s, then you will need to find another place to live.”

Kree did insist on red, and Julia was glad. She studied her reflection in her bathroom mirror for about the twentieth time and shook her head in that deliberate measured way of hair product models. She was getting quite good at it, she decided as her blunt-cut layers swung in a wide arc before settling on her shoulders.

And she laughed out loud, at first because she couldn’t help herself—the delight just uncoiled like an overwound spring set loose—and then in recollection of Kree revealing the colour. Paprika.

Julia had flown out of the chair, her eyes wide with horror. “That sounds like orange.”

“No,” Kree said as she eased her back down. “That sounds like hot.”

Did she look hot? Julia narrowed her eyes to inspect her image more objectively. The woman staring back at her didn’t look like Julia Goodwin. She looked like… Julia tried a pout. Oh, my, she thought with a wild fluttering of excitement in the pit of her stomach. She could almost pass for one of those models. She could pass for a woman who drove a red sports car.

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