The Auction Trilogy

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The scent of fresh-brewed coffee intruded into the dream where Harvey and I cantered alongside a girl on a snow white pony. The girl resembled Pippa, but the way she carried herself was anything but young. She kept trying to tell me something, but the passing wind made it difficult to hear. I tangled my fingers in Harvey's mane and leaned closer to discern what the girl on the white pony kept trying to tell me. Suddenly, I felt the experience of falling.

"Bloody hell!"

I caught the bed post just in time to avoid tumbling onto the floor. My heart raced. I could still almost feel the horse underneath my buttocks. My thighs hurt where I had tightened them in my sleep to ride a gelding that had been dead for six years.

The scent of coffee beckoned from the kitchen. I glanced out the still-dark window, and for a moment I felt disoriented about where I'd woken up. Little by little, reality intruded into the dream. Nutyoon. Bedroom. Monday morning. Time to get up and get to work. After two days spent getting to know the little girl, today her father would leave for his first business trip away.

With a groan, I threw back the covers and hauled my sorry butt out of bed, feeling around with my bare feet until my piggy-toes found the soft knap of my sheepskin slippers. I pulled on my bathrobe and stepped towards the open window where the faintest hint of grey had begun to brighten the sky. The scent of water blended with the rich aroma of earth felt intoxicating in a land which was prone to drought. Off in the distance, the moonlight reflected off the water, or … wait! What? A fire burned right from the center of the river.

I leaned closer, scrutinizing the distant lights. A central, ethereal glow radiated out of the river, surrounded by smaller lights which danced around it in a circle, as though a group of children had gathered at a bonfire to dance while carrying candles.

I rubbed my eyes to make certain I wasn't still dreaming…

Something clattered from the direction of the kitchen. A baritone expletive drifted my way, spoken in the thick, broad country dialect of an Outbacker.

The coffee beckoned like a siren singing. Adam claimed to be an untalented cook, but when it came to coffee, the man could outdo the most talented barista. I glanced back towards the river, but the lights had disappeared. I decided to see if Adam needed help.

He looked different this morning than the man I'd spent the last two days getting to know, clean-shaven and wearing charcoal designer slacks, a tailored dress shirt, with a grey striped tie draped around his neck, but not yet knotted. His clean-scraped chin only accentuated his chiseled features, and his golden-brown hair had been moussed back into the stylish cut of someone you might find in a boardroom. His language, however, was anything but Pommy as he scraped at a cast iron griddle, looking out of place in a kitchen which had been sized for a woman. From the burnt, black stack of circular objects next to him on plate, I guessed he was trying to make pikelets.

"Do you need some help?" I asked

Adam's head shot up, his blue-green eyes startled; as though he hadn't expected anyone to be awake.

"I'm, uhm, good." He grabbed the griddle and forgot to put the potholder over the handle. "Bloody hell!" he yelped, elongating the 'uhd' in bloody as he yanked back his hand and shook it.

"You should stick that under the cold water."

"Do yer think so, mate?" Adam snapped. His eyes burned aquamarine with anger.

I resisted the urge to snap back at him.

"Fine."

I turned to go back to bed.

"Rosie … I’m sorry," Adam said. "I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

I stopped and waited, and then I turned around.

"Don't you have to be out of here?"

Adam looked sheepish.

"Every time I went away on business," he said, "my mother would get up to make me breakfast. She made a double batch and left my plate so that when Pippa got up, she could pretend she'd eaten her breakfast with me." A hint of grief made him grimace. "Mama made me breakfast a week before she died. I knew she was sick, but I had no idea the cancer was terminal, only that the last few weeks she asked Mrs. Hastings to help her care for Pippa."

He inhaled sharply. From the way his broad shoulders shuddered, his mother's death had hit him a lot harder than he was letting on.

"I'm sorry for your loss," I said. "From how Pippa describes her, she was one heck of a lady?"

Adam nodded. His eyes appeared too blue and bright. He rubbed his nose and looked away.

"This will be the first trip I've made since my mother died," he said. "I'm not good at these kinds of things, but I promised my mother I would be a better father. I thought…"

He trailed off and pointed at the table. Three places were set with ceramic plates, a blue gingham napkin, and silverware. Pippa's place had a handwritten note tucked under her fork along with the yellow pill he'd explained had been prescribed 'for depression.' The pikelets looked like little black manhole covers, but the coffee smelled delicious. A small, ceramic crock full of butter, a jar of homemade strawberry preserves, and a tea canister repurposed to hold icing sugar were laid out in the center of the table.

"I think if you put a bowl over the pikelets," I said, "it will keep them warm, so when Pippa wakes up she'll know you made her breakfast with love."

Adam nodded, grateful I understood. I fished a heavy ceramic serving bowl out of the cupboard and placed it upside down upon the stack. Adam scraped the last broken pikelet out of the pan and tossed it into the sink. I filled it with water to soak as he rustled up two teacups to drink the coffee.

"Please, won't you join me?" he said.

I gathered my bathrobe so the neckline wouldn't flop open and sat down at the Formica table: grey and red, with a chrome edge and matching chairs with duct tape on the vinyl to keep the stuffing inside.

For the last two days Adam had acted standoffish. Not unfriendly, more like he felt uncomfortable with having a strange woman living in his house. He tipped the peculiar little coffee carafe he'd been heating directly over the gas flame to pour a steaming brown waterfall of heaven into my cup.

"Thank you."

He sat down opposite my seat and scooped out three sugars and a healthy glug of cream. I followed his example. I had taken to drinking coffee to keep awake through my classes, my teacher training practicum, and the job I worked on top of that to earn the rent. Australia might be a nation of tea drinkers, but my Spanish father had always preferred coffee. It was yet another way to rebel against my mother.

I closed my eyes and raised the cup to my nose, relishing the tickle in my olfactory senses as the caffeinated steam made its way into my sinuses. I took the first sip. Pure heaven slid like silk across my tongue, just the right balance of bitterness and sweet. I let out a low groan.

I opened my eyes and realized Adam was staring at me. Color crept up into my cheeks.

"This is really good coffee," I said. "You have no idea how hard it is to find an excellent cuppa long black."

A flash of surprise danced across Adam's handsome features, as though the man had never been complimented before.

"It's the only thing I make well," he said. "Sometimes my company sends me overseas. I bought this thing—" he held up the little copper carafe on a long handle, "—from a trader on the back of a camel in Saudi Arabia. With this, you can make coffee anywhere. Even over a campfire in the desert."

"Really?" I studied the peculiar little carafe. "My father liked to use a French press."

"You mentioned he was from Spain?"

"Is," I said. "He is from Spain. He moved back there after he divorced my mother. I've only seen him once since I graduated high school."

Adam stared into his cup, his expression thoughtful.

"I would say that it wasn't very nice of him to leave such a lovely daughter behind," he said softly. "But truth is, until Eva and I split, I spent more time chasing after oil wells than taking care of Pippa."

I sipped my coffee and tried to keep my expression non-judgmental. My mother was furious when my father returned to Spain, but I blamed her for driving him away.

"You're taking care of Pippa now." I gestured towards the blackened pikelets. "She's a lovely girl, and this is a good first step."

Adam looked relieved.

"Eva believed if we hired the best help, it would make up for our shortcomings as parents. We had a lovely older woman who loved Pippa as though she was her own, but then Mrs. Richardson retired, and the governesses we hired since then all up and quit. I think that's what finally drove Eva over the edge, being forced to actually be a mother."

He cut into his pikelet and pushed it around his plate, but I'd noticed he often didn't finish his meals. I bit into my own blackened pancake, and then reached for the canister of icing sugar.

"My mother is the domineering type," I said. "She was always there, but nothing ever pleased her. My father got sick of it and left, but she wouldn't let him see me, so eventually he just left Australia and went home."

"Do you hate him?"

I gave Adam a wistful look.

"I blame her for driving him away."

Adam opened his mouth as though to ask another question, but thankfully interpreted my crossed arms to mean 'back off.' We ate in silence until he glanced at his watch.

"I have to go," he said. "I have a plane to catch to Sydney."

"I'll tell Pippa you made her breakfast," I said. "She'll appreciate it. I'll make sure she understands."

Adam stood up and grabbed the charcoal suit jacket he'd hung over the back of his chair. He slipped his arms into the sleeves and began to fumble with his tie.

"Here, let me," I said.

He froze as I touched the narrow strip of silk which was far more expensive looking than any article of clothing I owned. The fabric slipped luxuriously through my fingers as I stepped closer and caught the light scent of aftershave.

"The hungry fox chases the rabbit twice around the tree—" I wrapped one end twice around the other. "Under the root, and over the branch, the rabbit escapes by jumping in his hole." I slid the fat end through the knot and tightened it perfectly beneath his collar.

Adam's hand slipped up to capture mine. He held it, where I'd tightened the knot, pressed into his chest right above his heart.

"That's quite the rhyme," he said.

My heart beat loudly in my ears as I became painfully aware of how very tall and male Adam was. Gregory had been handsome in the manner of a yearling racehorse, but in the paddock, Adam would be a stallion.

"I'm a primary school teacher," I said. "Or at least I will be, once I find a permanent job. But one of the schools where I did my practicum was an all-boy's college preparatory academy."

Adam squeezed my hand.

"Take good care of Pippa while I'm gone," he said softly. "I may not be the greatest father, but everything I've done, I've always done for her."

This was not a come-on, but a plea from a worried dad. I suddenly felt ashamed of lusting after the man like a mare in heat. Adam was only interested in somebody to care for his daughter.

"I will," I said. "You have my word."

Adam nodded and held my hand a little longer than was necessary, and then he broke away, the skittishness he'd exhibited earlier suddenly returned. I recognized it as the discomfort of an until-recently married man around a woman who was not his wife. Until Gregory had dumped me, every time a man had paid attention to me, I'd scampered away, thinking I must somehow be betraying him.

Adam gathered up his briefcase and his travel bag.

"Adam?" I asked. "I, um … when I first woke up, I saw lights down by the river."

Adam grinned.

"Those are the Mimis," he said. "Fairies. Ask Pippa about them. She'll tell you all kinds of stories."

"Fairies?" My eyebrows shot up with disbelief. "Really?"

Adam laughed.

"I highly doubt it! That's just what my mother called them when we were kids. We never did figure out what they are, but the lights only appear at certain times of the year. I suspect they are fireflies emerging from their nest."

I remembered Pippa telling her dog that the fairy queen had brought me here to make her father happy. Her clever grandmother must have leveraged some real-life natural phenomena to turn Pippa's relocation after divorce into a magical experience for her.

"Goodbye, Adam," I said.

I watched as he pulled the dust cover off his silver Mercedes SLX, got into the car and drove away, into that other world where Adam was a man of privilege. The promise of dawn brightened the eastern sky. Off to the west, the Milky Way jutted straight out of the horizon like an enormous belt of stars. It was pretty here, with no sound but the peeper frogs and the chirp of crickets to break the peace.

"I could get used to this," I said.

A shooting star shot across the heavens. I closed my eyes to make a wish, concentrating the way my Gitano gypsy grandmother had taught me to make things manifest.

Please? I need a home?