room, where she used the other to defy Patricia’s, ‘Don’t you dare lock that door, Amanda-Jayne! I want to speak with you.’ Then, with the bedroom swirling around her, she dashed to her private bathroom.
She was dimly aware of her stepmother thumping on the bedroom door, but she had no idea what she was shouting at her. Considering Patricia’s vocal-amplification abilities, she could only assume that hearing impairment was a side effect of heaving one’s heart out.
Dear God, how much longer would this last?
For over a week now she’d been getting up close and personal with the commode at varying and multiple times each day. Morning sickness? Ha! She hoped whatever idiot had named it that had been exiled in disgrace from the world of medical science and was at this minute eyeballing Satan!
‘My doctor wants details of any medical problems the baby might inherit from you… When you get the relevant information you can mail it to me… And that will be the end of it.’
For the thousandth time, Reb’s mind replayed the scene at the garage.
‘Like hell that’ll be the end of it,’ he said, rolling the beer bottle he’d emptied nearly an hour ago between his palms. ‘If I’ve fathered a kid, Ms I-didn’t-need-your-financial-assistance Vaughan, I’m sure as hell going to contribute more than just a medical report to its future.’
Reb wasn’t yet sure what exactly he was going to say or precisely what demands he was going to lay on Amanda-Jayne when he fronted up at the Vaughan house tomorrow morning, but one thing was sure: she wouldn’t want to count on her New Year getting off to the start she’d planned. He might have been too shell-shocked to entirely comprehend what she’d said prior to speeding out of the garage earlier this evening, but he wasn’t giving her the satisfaction of thinking she was calling all the shots for much longer. First thing tomorrow morning he was going to be on her doorstep ready to set a few ground rules of his own and she’d better be ready to listen.
‘Hoy, Reb! Since when have you got so antisocial?’
At the wry question, Reb lowered his gaze from the inky sky and watched the approach of the woman who’d delivered it. Wearing ratty sneakers, cut-off jeans and a skimpy midriff top, the pint-size blonde looked barely old enough to be in high school, much less the mother of his two-year-old goddaughter. It was an illusion that vanished the moment she was close enough for anyone to see her eyes. At a glance they were a startling green…on closer inspection they were more jaded than green, making Debbie Jenkins seem decades older than the twenty-one Reb knew her to be.
It occurred to him that Deb’s background was the complete antithesis to Amanda-Jayne Vaughan’s. A runaway from a home life that was all too familiar to most of Reb’s friends, she’d spent a year in a juvenile detention centre before hooking up with a group of bikers that even he’d regarded as bad news. But in the best traditions of irony she’d got ‘lucky’ just over three years ago when her loser boyfriend had put her up as collateral in a pub card game and Reb had ‘won’ her. If she’d been surprised when he’d said he wasn’t interested in having her warm his bed, she’d near died of shock when he’d offered her a ride to Vaughan’s Landing and a full-time job working in the garage.
Reb had given her a chance and his mate Gunna had given her his heart. Neither man had ever been sorry.
‘So how come you’re sittin’ out here all by your lonesome?’ she asked. ‘Not like you to be on the fringes of a party.’
‘Just needed a bit of time to consider my New Year resolutions.’
She laughed. ‘Let me guess, you’re givin’ up smokin’…again.’
Reb grimaced, regretting that the best he could claim in his latest campaign to quit was having cut back and switched to an ultra low tar/nicotine brand.
‘Yeah, that too,’ he said. ‘Maybe this year I’ll manage to give them right away, huh?’
‘Well, I’m givin’ ’em away,’ Debbie asserted proudly. ‘And I’m doin’ it cold turkey. It’s time I set Alanna a good example.’
‘I wish I could’ve managed that. Good luck, Deb; take it from me, you’re in for a tough time.’
‘Mentionin’ tough… What’s this I hear about Savvy givin’ you the slip?’
Reb paused as a means of checking the anger the question reignited. His fifteen-year-old cousin was going to be lucky if he didn’t wring her neck first chance he got.
‘We had a disagreement about her going to some party tonight,’ he said finally. ‘As usual she holed up in her bedroom sulking. Then, while I was talking to Aman—er—a customer,’ he amended quickly, ‘she bolted. I didn’t know she wasn’t upstairs until about an hour later, after I finished working on Mrs Kelly’s FJ.’
‘Bolted? You mean ran away?’
‘No, no,’ Reb said quickly, responding to the alarm in Debbie’s expression. ‘She hasn’t taken any of her stuff. Just snuck off for the night. The brat left a note saying “Gone to party. Don’t wait up.” I’ll kick her butt into the middle of next month when I get hold of her,’ he promised.
‘I’m surprised you just didn’t go right out an’ haul her butt home.’
‘I would’ve if I’d had the slightest clue where the party was,’ Reb said curtly. ‘It’s because she wouldn’t give me any details in the first place that I said she couldn’t go. And her friends were predictably close-mouthed when I rang around trying to find out where it was. Her life won’t be worth living when I get my hands on her.’
‘Can’t be too tough on her, Reb,’ she said. ‘I mean, she’s a kid. Didn’t you do the same thing at fifteen?’
Reb hadn’t. There had been no point in sneaking out or even asking permission to do something or go somewhere when his old man had let him run his own race from the time he’d been able to walk. He hadn’t even started school the first time the cops had brought him home after finding him wandering along the highway. When his old man had died, he’d moved in with his uncle, but the then toddling Savannah was such a handful that Bill had relied on Reb’s self-sufficiency to extend to taking care of her as well. Trouble was, the teenage Savvy was proving more of a handful than the hyperactive two-year-old version had ever been.
‘Fairness isn’t high on my priority list right now,’ he grumbled. ‘I’ve got more than enough problems on my plate without all the stunts she’s been pulling these last few months.’
‘Problems?’ Immediate concern wrinkled Debbie’s features. ‘With the business?’
‘No, thank God! That’s the one part of my life that’s not currently causing me headaches. Although I’ll probably jinx myself sayin—’ Reb broke off at the sound of Joe Cocker’s voice cranked to a volume loud enough to shatter ice at both poles.
Debbie cursed. ‘I just told Gunna not to connect those other two amps! We’ll have the cops out here shortly.’
‘I don’t think you have to worry about breaking any noise acts tonight, Deb. Apart from it being New Year’s Eve there’s not another house for miles.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ she muttered. ‘There’s at least a dozen guys here who could
