Christmas Belles (Gillies Ridge)

Chapter 6

“H I, EVERYONE. My name’s Tallulah and I'm your tour guide. Welcome aboard. We need to hit the road if we wanna make our lunch stop on time.”

Rika shot a startled glance at Richard. Their guide was dressed in a black leather bodysuit, corseted to accentuate their lean muscled body; the black hairs of their chest partly concealed by a purple velvet cravat that disappeared into their cleavage.

Their fishnet stockings and black stilettos accentuated quads and calf muscles that told of thousands of gym hours in between speakeasy gigs.

Vamptastic plum lipstick completed their outfit.

They tipped a blood red top hat towards a sleek silver limo. “Our first stop is The Valley.” They turned their head to where Pom sat at the bar, chatting with the mixologist. “Is she coming?”

“I think Pom is otherwise occupied,” Grace said with a laugh. “Our sister’s been fascinated with mixology for some time now, hasn't she Ali?” The two sisters chuckled, leaving Rika and Richard bemused.

“Looks like there’s only four of us, Tallulah,” Grace said, as she climbed into the sleek limousine.

“All more room for us,” Ali said, climbing in after her.

Rika found herself next to Richard—with a friendly distance between them—and her two daughters facing opposite.

Suddenly the door flung open. “Hey, wait for us.” Pom had brought her mixologist along for the ride. “Squash up everyone.”

Whereas two minutes ago Rita had thought there was plenty of room for all of them, suddenly there wasn't enough room at all. She was pressed against Richard’s side, his body heat making her flush.

Friends. Close friends. But friends, nonetheless.

Keep telling yourself that, Rika. The man could make your body combust merely by looking at you with those come-to-be-with-me eyes. Who knows what your recalcitrant hormones will do now you are literally joined to him?

His hand found its way to her knee again and gave it a gentle squeeze. He was clearly enjoying her discomfort. Which hadn't been the purpose of inviting him along at all, she thought crossly.

“Everyone, this is Marc. He tends bar and he’s tagging along for research purposes.”

Marc and Tallulah chatted about the art of mixing cocktails; from how to make an Old Fashioned for the modern woman, batch making Manhattans for party girls and how to make a Shirley Temple with a twist for the more mature palate.

By the time they reached The Valley Rika felt light-headed from all the details they imparted.

Not to mention the effect of Richard’s proximity on her libido.

If she was the first to alight from the limo at their destination it was because she was keen to learn about the prohibition history of The Valley.

Yeah, sure.

Richard hooked his hand through hers as their group followed Tallulah.

They proved to be a great tour guide. They knew the history of the alleyways and back streets of The Valley, which they spun into a web of romance and intrigue, peppered with more than a sprinkling of hijinks and skullduggery.

Rika listened with rapt attention. Richard’s hand in hers was nothing more than a courtesy. Which she accepted because she was a mature woman totally in control of her life.

Handholding she could handle.

It was her hormones that weren’t playing by the rules. Hormones that had laid dormant for so long it had taken a whole sleepless night to battle them back into submission.

She gave Richard’s fingers a squeeze to prove her theory. Big mistake. The pressure of his thumb as it gently pressed the back of her hand told her she needed to re-enroll in theory school.

Theory zero. Thumb massage by male friend, off the Richter Scale.

She relaxed her hand and gave in to the inevitable. And turned her attention back to the tour guide.

None of the tourists or locals batted an eyelid at Tallulah’s attire as they strolled along Brunswick Street. Signs of gentrification were present in the upmarket shops and cafes, but there were pockets of the old Valley on show.

And this is where Tallulah took them.

Halfway along the infamous strip they turned down a redbrick paved alleyway that was more grunge than chic with its ghetto graffiti, and dank, musty odours.

Grace and Tallulah exchanged a look.

Rika knew without being told she was in for more of Grace's artwork.

But not even she was prepared for the naked bodies intertwined in various poses of group sex.

“I don't think—” Grace shot a furtive look at her mother as Tallulah told them the artist of the scene had been commissioned for two similar pieces in New York.

They explained that street art was a multimillion-dollar business, and that visitors flocked to The Valley to see the artist’s work after it had been written up in New York’s Museum of Modern Art magazine.

Rika returned her daughter’s gaze with a bland look of her own, conscious of the man beside her holding her hand. “Another Belle with hidden talents. Something else for us to celebrate today.”

“Our grandmother was bootleg brewer,” Ali explained to Tallulah. “Our tour today is in honour of her memory.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Rika murmured.

“Richard worked with our grandmother,” Grace said, keen to change the subject. “He knows as much about whiskey as you do about The Valley.”

Richard held out his hand to Tallulah. “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said. “You’ll have to tell me more about your tours. Maybe we could add a trail of the city’s boutique whiskey distilleries to your catalogue.”

Tallulah clapped their hands together. “Now, there's a proposition if ever I heard it,” they said with a wink. “But I thought you and Ms Belle—”

“Don't believe everything you read in the gossip rags,” Richard said easily, dropping Rika’s hand and snaking an arm around her waist. “Rika and I are old friends.”

Tallulah nodded like they believed him, and shook their head like they didn't believe him at all. “Anyone hungry? Lunch is street food.” They guided their group back to the tourist strip and pointed to the historic McWhirter’s building. “I’ll meet you out front in an hour.”

The girls and Marc made a beeline for a Gujarati food truck decorated with chillies and an Indian spice wheel, leaving Rika and Richard alone in the middle of the sidewalk.

He looked ridiculously handsome in his too-tight dinosaur T-shirt. Somewhere along the line one of the girls had found him a black fedora, which he wore tipped at a rakish angle.

A bad-ass wearing a dinosaur T-shirt. Make that a hot as sin bad-ass. Who set her heart aflutter in ways she thought she was long past feeling.

Alone with him on the busy street felt even more intimate than being squashed against him the limo.

She should step away.

Set boundaries.

Instead, she stood there, taking in the smell of him. It would be so easy to turn her body slightly so that she was pressed against the length of him.

She looked up to find him watching her through half closed eyes.

Waiting for her to make the first move.

She forced herself to step away. “Food,” she said ordered.

He caught her hand and raised it to his lips, dropping the kiss she had definitely not been waiting for onto the back of her hand. “Good idea. I’m hungry.”

She resisted the urge to bring her hand to her lips where his mouth had pressed. “What do you want?”

Do you need to ask? He could have spoken the words aloud.

“To eat?” she clarified.

“You choose for the both of us.”

It was a tradition they had started when they were teenagers. He'd go to the canteen and choose for them, and then it would be her turn, and she chose. They’d eat each other's food and then they'd kiss the afternoon away.

The look he gave her he told her he remembered, too.

The heat building in her groin raised another notch. “You're perfectly capable of getting your own food,” she replied. “I stopped waiting on people a long time ago.”

He shrugged. “It's not that. I haven't got my glasses with me. I can't read the menu.”

Her tension eased. “Come with me,” she said, tugging at his hand, ignoring the spark of electricity that shot her to combustion levels. “We can choose together.”

Compromise. Like the two adults they were. Not two teenagers with their hormones in overdrive.

They could do this. Spend a day together, then go their separate ways. She wasn't attracted. It was summer and she was hot because that’s what summer did.

“To eat?” she clarified.

Who was she kidding?

Of course she was attracted. If she had her way she’d have stayed in the limo and ravished him on the back seat.

They chose their food and retired to a low brick fence on the side of the pavement to people watch while they ate their food.

And if she thought of him as she licked the juice from her fingers, she kept the thought to herself. Companiable silence meant she didn’t have to share everything. Which was just as well. Sharing X-rated thoughts in the middle of a crowded thoroughfare was not on her list of activities for the day.

Spending time with an old friend. Tick. Putting the past behind her. Tick. Getting hot flushes for said sexy-as-the-devil old friend. Big fat cross. Exclamation mark.

They met everyone at the limo the appointed time for Tallulah to drive them to the next speakeasy. She told herself it was just how things worked out that she sat between her youngest daughters for the ride.

Only the afternoon to go.

She could do this.

If only the man whose temptations were setting her alight from the inside would stop looking so damned sexy across from her in the limo.

Like he knew that her choice of seating was deliberate. And he was happy to play along. But that she wasn’t fooling either of them.

Their destination couldn’t come soon enough.

It wasn’t a bar so much as a café style laundromat. Books and magazines littered the benches. Whoever thought of this idea was on a winner. It was packed. Sunday afternoons doing the washing with friends. While they waited for their washing, they lounged around on low slung lounges sipping cocktails and nibbling finger food delivered by jeans-clad waitresses who were indistinguishable from the clientele.

Rika pictured herself curled up beside Richard on one of the big comfy lounges. Stop it , she ordered her errant thoughts. No more alcohol for you .

She looked around as Richard went to get their drinks. Marc and Pom sat close together at a bench overlooking the street. Tallulah was in an animated conversation with Ali. Where was Grace? Did she even need to ask?

Rika took the time alone to catch her breath. She was having fun, she realized. She couldn't remember the last time she had that. Fun wasn't a word in her busy life as she kept all her balls in the air running Belle Corporation.

Maybe she should make Sundays with her family mandatory. She liked seeing her daughters in their own environment.

And she liked seeing Richard out of his.

Her thoughts drifted to the man who had turned back up in her life after all this time. Before yesterday she had total control of her thoughts and feelings about him. Time had dulled the edges. Now he was at the front and centre of them.

And time had turned into a ticking time bomb.

Had she really agreed to a night in his bed at the end of the day? Or had the cocktails she’d imbibed during brunch dulled her memory?

She looked up and there he was. He held two glasses. “Mocktails,” he said quietly. “Otherwise, we won't make it till tonight.”

Nope, her memory was fine. It was her libido that was out of control.

She patted the couch beside her. “Sit beside me, old man, while we watch the young ones at play.”

He sat down behind beside her, and she gave in to the urge to rest a head on his shoulder.

“Did we ever have as much energy?”

“From what I remember we could keep up with the best of them.”

“We were rather good together, weren’t we?” The cocktails of the morning were making her mellow. Pineapple juice with a dash of grenadine was a wise choice.

They sat in companionable silence.

She could hear his heartbeat.

She turned and sniffed at his neck. “You smell nice,” she murmured, and gave into the urge to close her eyes.

She didn’t know how much later it was when she felt him shake her gently.

She groaned. “I fell asleep, didn’t I?”

“’Fraid so,” he said. “Some of our chickens have flown the coop, so to speak.”

“Our tour?”

“It would appear your daughters have left us to it.”

Tallulah waited at the bar, watching them.

“I don't suppose we could just go home to bed?” She smothered a cough. “I mean—”

“Hold that thought,” he said. “They’ve gone ahead to the next place on the list. Over at the Regatta on the river. Ali said it may be too noisy for us and that we should take the limo straight to place number four.”

“Number four?” Knowing she shouldn't ask and that she was going to regret it.

“Apparently Tallulah knows where it is,” he said. “And since we’re at their mercy, we may as well enjoy the ride.”

Tallulah brought the limo around to the front of the laundry and Richard helped Rika inside.

She accepted his hand gratefully. She was tired. Food and alcohol, speakeasies and music, and too many people, were all taking their toll.

She’d give anything to go home and put her feet up. With Richard beside her. She was too groggy to squash the thought.

He was easy company, and they were adults. She missed having someone to be with.

Who was she kidding?

Not someone.

Him.

She wanted Richard.

The past and the present were so muddled up in her brain she didn't know whether her feelings were memories or whether they were real.

She pulled away and took a sip out of the water bottle provided next to the champagne in the cooler.

The limousine took them back towards the city, skirting the Botanical Gardens. And pulled up at a two-storey heritage sandstone building with sweeping verandahs shaded by towering jacarandas.

She recognised it at once. “What are we doing here?”

She looked at the tour guide in the mirror, her gaze accusing.

Tallulah met her gaze and smiled. “It’s part of the package. Didn't Richard tell you?”