Jubilee Year: A Novel (Erelong Trilogy Book I) - An Extended Sample

Chapter 17: TAUT

The Manly ferry cut through the chop on the harbor. The robust wooden boat almost graceful as it glided past the restaurant directly below the window of their hotel room. Gas burners positioned on poles glowed over the diners huddling at their tables below umbrellas that barely sheltered them from the constant drizzle that never seemed to stop falling on Sydney.

Their journey had taken ages, and he was feeling very tired, but he was not ready to take a rest. He could not take his eyes off the harbor. When the wooden-hulled vessel passed by the pointy white shells of the Opera House, he turned back to her.

"Were there any girlfriends while I was at away at school?"

"What?" He asked in genuine surprise.

She lay on her stomach making sultry, seductive eyes at him on the king sized bed. She was doing her best to entice him from the window, but he was stubborn. She was starting to feel a little irritated because of it. Penny didn't like to be ignored. "I said—did you see other girls while I was away from Coona?"

He turned back to the window. "Of course not," he muttered. Well, there was the one-night spent with Macey, a British tourist spending her holidays exploring the outback. He wondered whether a one night stand would count. He thought it did not, but Penny might think otherwise.

She had promised to keep in touch. She sent him a postcard without a return address. He remembered how relieved he was that he didn't have to reply. After all, it wasn't like he would be traveling the world anytime soon.

There was Katie, but she didn't count. They had met when he worked for her father on the family farm, cropping the shitty butts of sheep. He was thankful the mulesing didn't last long because cleaning up flystrike was horrible work. Then the farmer asked him to repair his sheds damaged by a season of high winds. Fixing farm sheds was positively fun in comparison to chopping the rear end of dusty sheep. At least the extra two weeks of work might have been fun if it were not for Katie.

There was no easy way for him to avoid her. She constantly attempted to corner him, then it was all kisses and urgent fumbles wedged between bridles and tractor tires. He shuddered when he remembered Katie's plaintive hopefulness on the last day on the job. She hung around the entire day with puppy dog eyes. She had told him she was looking for the right man and she could see it wasn't going to be him.

He sat down on the dark brown quilt beside Penny and kissed her on the lips.

"You did see someone, didn't you?" She said pulling away with a frown.

He rolled off the bed. "No, I didn't!" He told her, without a lot of conviction. He turned away when he told the lie, but that only made things worse. Now she knew for sure. "All right," he said, leveling with her. "So, I kissed Katie Howard when I was working for her old man. That's all I did!"

"Oh, kissing is nothing," Penny said with a roll of her eyes, but she was disappointed with the answer. "Are you sure that was it?"

"Jeez, Pen," he mumbled. "You and me—we are only ever together when you are home for your holiday. It's not like I'm a machine with an on and off switch."

"I guess you can do whatever you like when I'm not there," she snorted. "I don't know what competition I have in Coona, and I don't care. I just wanted an honest answer."

"You don't have any competition," he told her.

"Well—of course not," she replied with an uncertain smile, no longer sure where she was going with her questions. She stared at him a long moment. Then she sat up and pulled off her top, throwing it over to him. "Come here and get your reward for saying the right things," she said.