Chapter 20
Twenty
The old wagon coughed a lungful of black smoke as it lumbered to a rolling stop under the lone gum tree.
The should’ve-been-retired police wagon’s sun-faded decals peeled like sunburnt skin, and the aircon had given up somewhere back near the turnoff.
Not that Taryn could blame it when she was considering the same.
Still, she was here, even if the wagon groaned and creaked in protest as she shut the driver’s door.
Freshly showered and changed, with dinner bags in one hand, she tucked a small box under her arm containing enough stationery supplies to start her own store. Finn’s mud map was tucked into her back pocket, complete with a note: Key’s under the busted tail-light. Don’t cut yourself.
Typical.
Finn’s place was tucked away, about twenty minutes from town. It was a low-slung house on stumps, shaded by old gum trees and wrapped in silence.
A Harley staunchly sat under the verandah, its polished chrome sparkling. Amara had mentioned, during her interview, that Finn had two that he’d dragged in a trailer behind the troopy in their cross-country tour of the livestock industry. So where was the second motorbike?
She climbed the steps, the dinner bags rustling.
The note had said busted tail-light. But there were two cracked specimens, who’d retired to front door guard duty, as Finn’s form of pot plants or garden gnomes.
She picked the left light. Checked underneath, and there it was: a key, tucked in behind a rusted bracket.
The front door opened with a sigh. Inside, she found the second Harley, dead centre of the living room, in mid-repair on a tarp.
Grease-stained rags kept it company, along with an assortment of tools lined up with military precision, and a single lamp bent over the engine like a spotlight gone to sleep.
Piled against the other wall was a stack of vinyl records, beside a record player. There was no couch. Not even a TV. With nothing on the walls but faded paint.
In the other corner stood a group of rolled maps.
Figured, he had a thing for maps. When Finn had maps clustered in the troopy, or covering the large round table in the Batcave, and now, here, lined up like fat toilet rolls. Although some looked ancient.
But the rest of the place was completely clutter-free.
Of course he lived like this, without distractions or junk. Just engines, records, and maps, as if plotting his exit.
In the kitchen, the battered round table looked handmade, like someone had taken a chainsaw to a slab of timber and called it done.
The three chairs didn’t match—all different heights, all equally sun-warped.
Probably left out as rubbish that he’d dragged through the red dirt on the back of the Harley to make their home here.
There were no appliances, not even a microwave or a toaster clogged up the kitchen benches. Only a battered kettle beside the gas stove.
The fridge, though—that was new. Huge, too. A beast of stainless steel that held water bottles, tomato sauce, a half-loaf of bread, and meat in the freezer. That was it.
‘Figures,’ she mumbled in her worst Finn impression. ‘Food fairy’s day off, huh?’
The pantry held even less. Besides his tins of killer coffee that could be used as motor fuel, there was lots of salt, cracked pepper, and a surprising selection of herbs and spices.
Even more surprising was the neat row of homemade preserved goods, the old-school kind.
Mango, beets, beans, chutney, and something suspiciously pink.
And all of the labels were neatly written. Most definitely feminine.
Her eyebrows lifted.
So there really was a food fairy. Who probably wore slippers and an apron that said, Bless This Mess.
The jars reminded her of her grandfather’s farm. Mornings with porridge and bottled peaches she’d helped pick with her cousin over summer, back when things had still made sense.
But she wasn’t here to psychoanalyse Finn. Or judge the kitchen. Or figure out why someone who lived like this still had room for canned fruit.
She was here to work.
Down the hall, she found two doors—took a guess and kicked one open with the side of her boot.
An enormous bed with black sheets stood centre stage. One pillow dented, the other untouched. A few duffel bags were stacked like deployment gear ready to roll. Another half-unzipped pack had clothes spilling out.
She backed out fast.
Definitely not the spare room.
‘Other door,’ came Finn’s rough voice behind her.
Where the hell did he come from?
Finn leaned his shoulder against the hallway wall like he’d been there the whole time.
You’d think she’d be used to how he looked by now—all six-foot something, bristling with ink, muscles, and attitude—that still made her pulse jump.
‘Spare room’s yours.’ Finn pushed the other door open and flicked on the light.
She squeezed by him in the narrow hall. So—so incredibly close as he stared down at her like she meant nothing.
She told herself it was fine. They were professionals. And this hallway was like being crammed into a lift with strangers. And he was just a man with a Harley in his living room, a bed with black sheets, and enough red flags to start his own parade.
The spare room had bare walls, of course, and one window. That was it. Perfect for what she needed.
She dropped the file box on the floor, and started unpacking like his presence, and the fact that they were alone, didn’t bother her.
Finn didn’t cross the threshold. He just stood there with one shoulder against the doorjamb. One foot in and one foot out, as if between enter and exit.
She’d noticed that earlier, the way he’d hovered outside the interrogation room. Like he was always mapping his exits, even in his own house.
Was he like this because of her? Or was it something he just did?
Taryn got busy, laying out the first page that trembled slightly in her fingers, as flashbacks of him kissing her senseless had left her second-guessing everything. And with him, blocking the door should she want to run, only made it worse.
‘Need anything?’ he asked.
‘Just tape. And maybe a whiteboard, if you’ve got one stashed behind your Harley shrine.’
Finn gave a small huff.
He still didn’t step into the room.
Instead, he grabbed a large plastic tub. Lifted the lid and passed her a roll of tape, and a battered clipboard.
‘Thanks.’ She got to work and taped up the first few sheets that made up Tooley’s statement.
She sorted through the freight schedules and stock route maps as the start of her web. But it felt lopsided. Fragmented. She needed a second set of eyes.
‘Do you want to help or just lurk?’
His brow lifted. ‘You’re the one running point.’
‘I am. Which means I get to delegate.’ She handed him a stack of papers without touching him.
He stepped in. Quietly. Like the floor might give out, or the ghosts might speak.
Funny how he could chase down a road train, or lean against the public bar like he owned it, but still paused like this—like walking into his own spare room was something he had to earn. Was it a prison rule he hadn’t shaken, or just… Finn? With her?
It was awkward at first, but soon they settled into a rhythm—her taping up evidence, him sorting out freight manifests. The two of them dancing around each other in the room like they’d rehearsed it.
He didn’t ask questions, just got to work grouping statements and manifests, laying it out like they already saw the pattern beneath the mess.
She taped another stock route to the wall and tried not to watch him. She knew she’d have to sort through this lot, before he gave her the missing file, the one about Everlight. It’s what she’d do in his situation.
Taryn reached over to stick another stock route map higher on the wall and cursed under her breath.
Finn glanced up. ‘Need a boost?’
‘You were given height for a reason. Don’t waste it.’ She held up the tape to him.
His mouth twitched just enough to hint at a smile he wasn’t letting her see. But those sinful eyes of his were calm. Along with a heat she was getting dangerously good at interpreting.
He took the page from her, their fingers brushing for just a second, but it was enough to scramble something under her skin.
He stepped in closer. She didn’t move. Not because she was frozen, but because if she shifted now, she might do something stupid.
Like breathe.
Finn taped the page to the wall, dead centre, of course. His arm brushed hers as he stepped back, leaving her nerves sparking like they’d just shorted out over a freight manifest.
Fantastic. So now red dirt and spreadsheet crimes were her kink.
Come on, this was about paperwork. Ink. Pages. And where pushing pins into the wall was like playing voodoo dolls for bad guys.
Yet somehow, she was having a full-body crisis over the proximity of a man who smelled like spice and poor decisions—the kind you knew better than to want but wanted to taste anyway.
Either she was losing it, or this was karma for pretending she could kiss Finn Wilde and go back to being professionally unaffected.
She just needed a minute.
Or a hose.
She cleared her throat. ‘Here’s another one to pin to the wall.’
Pin to the wall.
Brilliant.
Her traitorous brain instantly replayed that phrase, with Finn pinning her to the wall. Legs around his waist. Mouth on his. As if they’d skipped every logical step between banter and good manners.
Wait! Had she said that out loud?
The silence dragged long enough to make her question reality.
Finn just looked at her. Like he was receiving signals she didn’t mean to send, in some bent-out-of-shape, primitive form of Morse code. The kind only cavemen and men like Finn Wilde could read.
Fantastic. Now she was fluent in horny cavewoman now.
The air between them wasn’t normal anymore, it was more like it was waiting to catch fire.
She cleared her throat. ‘I said the page. For the wall. Paperwork.’
Nope. That wasn’t even close to what she had said because, frankly, she’d forgotten everything but Finn.
She risked a glance.
Finn had remained still, yet the air in the room had shifted a few degrees warmer. Especially when his gaze slid over her, slow and intense in a quiet look that was anything but casual.
And then, because Finn Wilde was infuriatingly unreadable and probably evil incarnate in at least three doctrines, he said, ‘Right. Paperwork.’
She handed him the page.
Again, the brush of fingers, while he kept that neutral expression. Like she tried to do…
Well, she hoped she did.
Yet the tension thrummed between them like a pulled wire, stretched and waiting to snap.
She turned back to the wall like it was the only safe place in the house, while her regretful list of what not to say to Finn Wilde grew.
Her eye caught the record player in the lounge. ‘You do realise those records are supposed to be played, and not get treated like vintage drink coasters?’
‘Touch my vinyls and I’ll tell Tanisha you chipped her cactus cup.’
She stared him down. ‘You do realise that only makes me want to do it more, right?’
‘My house. My music. My rules.’
She arched a brow. ‘Give me five minutes and a Bluetooth speaker, and I’ll have this place pumping with something that’ll make your eyebrows fall off and have the troopy cry.’
‘I bet you could,’ he muttered, sorting another stack of paperwork.
She grinned, reaching for her workbag.
‘Save it, Fed.’ Dropping his wad of papers on the floor in a neat stack, he left the room.
Soon there was a soft click, a low crackle of static, then the unmistakable sound of a needle hitting vinyl.
The first chords rolled in—slow, smoky, deliberate.
Chris Stapleton’s Tennessee Whiskey.
Of course, he’d own something country. While it was doubtful she had anything close to the country music genre on her playlists.
But she knew this song.
‘Tennessee Whiskey, huh?’ She peeled back a strip of tape, then lined up a manifest with more force than necessary.
Finn’s voice came low behind her. ‘Didn’t think you’d know it.’
‘I won’t admit it in public.’ She shrugged, keeping her focus on the wall they were filling up like a jigsaw puzzle that had no shape.
‘This song is a regular in military bars. Like an unofficial anthem for deployment nights, as that last slow song before goodbye. You hear it enough, it sticks… That if someone starts slow dancing, you know their plane leaves at dawn.’
She hadn’t meant to say that much, but it spilled out anyway. ‘Never saw much point in getting attached to people or places when we were always leaving.’ She knew the drill. Her hellos always came with a ready-packed goodbye, where the in-between time was just waiting for the next rotation.
She could feel Finn watching her. He didn’t offer to change the music. And she didn’t ask. But that song did its job of making her remember her purpose.
She was doing this for answers—for her family.
So they kept moving through the paperwork.
Her dodging the crate stack, him ducking under the red string she’d strung across one wall, as the music became more upbeat as different records were played.
They bumped shoulders, passed pens, clipped pages, and kept at it.
All their conversations were about the job, with a clear goal now in sight.
The paperwork spread like wallpaper made into something between a scrappy paper quilt and a conspiracy web masquerading as decor.
They were halfway into colour-coding connections when a knock on the front door broke through the rhythm.
‘Finn?’
Finn straightened as the front door opened.
‘Finn, you around, luv?’
That didn’t sound like a cop calling. Was this Finn’s food fairy?