Fairway to Heaven Read online

  Fairway to Heaven

  Lily Malone

  www.escapepublishing.com.au

  Fairway to Heaven

  Lily Malone

  It’s going to take more than summer loving to heal old wounds, but a remote beach, old friendships and a bit of sunshine might just spark a second chance at love.

  When Jennifer Gates drives to Sea Breeze Golf Club to kick off date-night with her boyfriend, the last thing she expects is to find Golf Pro Jack giving one of his lady students a private — and very personal — lesson in bunker-play.

  Lucky for Jenn, her best friend gives her the keys to the Culhane family’s beach shack on the white-pepper shores of Western Australia’s Geographe Bay. Jenn hopes a weekend on the coast with her young son will give her the space she needs to rebuild her confidence after Jack’s betrayal.

  But she’s not the only person seeking sanctuary by the sea. Brayden Culhane is there too, and Jenn can’t look at Brayden without remembering the tequila-flavoured kiss they shared on the shack steps years ago.

  As long-buried feelings are rekindled, and a friendship is renewed, Jenn knows it is more than lazy summer days bringing her mojo back. Romantic sunsets, ice-cold beers and the odd round of golf can only go so far, because this time trusting Brayden with her heart won’t be enough. Jenn has to learn to trust her body, too.

  About the Author

  Lily Malone is a journalist and freelance writer who discovered, after years of writing facts for a living, writing romance was much more fun.

  Lily lives in the Margaret River region of Western Australia, where she juggles writing with the needs of a young family. When she isn’t writing, she likes gardening, walking, wine, and walking in gardens (sometimes with wine).

  Also known as Lily ‘Beanie Queen’ Malone, Lily is part of the writing group called Naughty Ninjas. These ladies get up to all kinds of mischief at their website, www.naughtyninjas.net

  With Jennie Jones, Juanita Kees and Claire Boston, Lily runs https://www.facebook.com/heartsnwined, a Facebook group for West Australian authors, and readers who love West Australian-set books.

  She loves to hear from readers and you can visit Lily at www.lilymalone.wordpress.com; email her at [email protected] or connect with her Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/lily.lilymalone or Twitter, @lily_lilymalone

  Acknowledgements

  With thanks to Marion Archer, Kylie Kaden, Jennie Jones, Juanita Kees and the Naughty Ninjas.

  It is so wonderful to know you’re out there, and you’ve got my back.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishing…

  Chapter 1

  Jack Bannerman likes the way my butt fills a pair of skinny jeans. I wish he didn’t. There’s a denim seam stuck in vaginal purgatory and no matter which way I squirm, it doesn’t want to budge. I’m getting squeezed in places no woman should ever be squeezed.

  If Jack says I don’t make an effort after today, I’ll…I’ll… I don’t know what I’ll do, but it won’t be pretty.

  Spying a gap in the traffic, I gun my Corolla across the dual lanes. The car splutters, hops a bit, and shoots between the polished black gates of Sea Breeze Golf Club into the shade of a solemn line of sheoaks.

  They’ve changed the layout since I was here last, but that was months ago. No. Longer. I haven’t hit a golf ball here since I was pregnant with Seb. Swinging a club around my stomach then was like swinging round a basketball.

  There are speed bumps on the driveway now, humps big as whales. The members must have thought the bumps would stop hoons. They’re a conservative lot.

  The Pro’s parking space — now Jack’s designated space since he started managing the shop and teaching — used to be under the spreading branches of a gnarled old oak. Now his Subaru WRX is in a different spot, parked nearer the Pro Shop, divided from the bitumen and the billiard-table lawn by a low white-painted post and rail fence. Afternoon sun glints off the WRX’s metallic blue paint.

  All the office-bearers and the Pro have reserved places. Secretary. Treasurer. Captain. The only slot currently filled, other than Jack’s, is President. That’s why Jack chooses Thursdays to teach golf lessons, because the course is quiet. It’s late night shopping in Perth and most of the members are under instruction to hurry home so their wives or girlfriends can hit the malls.

  The dashboard clock says five-thirty and a thrill rushes through me. Tonight is all planned. Champagne on ice, Jack’s favourite dinner in the oven, and Sebastian is at Emmy’s for a sleepover.

  If Jack wants to, we might hit a few balls down the twelfth for old time’s sake. We used to do that a lot, before we had Seb. Although when I look at my borrowed shoes, I’m hardly dressed for golf.

  I cruise past a SAAB, then a Mercedes, turn the corner and double back, pass a couple of four-wheel-drives, one with the personalised license plate screaming HOLE IN 1.

  Aiming the Corolla at a spot under the oak, I come in a little too fast. The tyres bump the kerb and recoil. Does that count as hoon behaviour?

  I clamber out into the scent of cut grass, hot bitumen, bore water from sprinklers splashing the greens, and as I shove the key in my pocket, take a subtle second to ease denim from the centre of my groin.

  The Pro Shop nestles under the right-hand wing of the club house. Unlike the more expansive glass and brick building, it’s got a skillion roof and it’s only single storey. The main path continues straight, but I detour right, wobbling a little in Emmy’s killer heels as I circle a bed of bright red geraniums, orange pokers, and yellow daisies.

  From the Pro Shop, I know Jack can see the carpark. Has he seen me? He could hear me — these heels would wake the dead.

  I’m an imposter in these shoes, but it’s exciting. I haven’t had a buzz like this in… too long to think about. My step quickens and I glance toward the Pro Shop door, half expecting Jack to be there, all lean and gorgeous, ready with a smart comment and a sexy smile.

  The sign on the front door is flipped to Closed.

  Huh?

  Shoving my sunglasses to the top of my head, I walk up to the Pro Shop door until my nose touches the glass. Nothing moves inside. I grab the door handle and push, then pull, and it doesn’t budge. Only then do I agree with what the sign already told me.

  ‘Pro Shop’s closed, Jennifer,’ I mutter, checking my reflection in the window. The jeans are half a size too tight — baby weight I haven’t yet worked off. Jack says he doesn’t mind a bit of meat on my bones, which is lucky. By my count, there’s a large steak each side of my hips.

  Two or three strands of blonde hair get yanked out as I lift the sunglasses from my head and put them back on my face.

  Sometimes when he isn’t busy, Jack will take a bucket of balls up on the driving range. He takes a radio, and if a customer comes there’s a button on the door that says “press for the Pro”.

  I don’t
want to press the button. Today, surprise is the key.

  The course opens before me, green, fresh, undulating like sheets in a breeze. It makes a wet sponge beneath my feet and in five steps, cut grass glues to Emmy’s shoes.

  Kicking them off, I hook a finger under the heels.

  The crack of someone teeing-off the fifteenth makes me look that way, but it’s not Jack. Two older men, silver-haired and bent, tuck their drivers in their golf bags and trudge away, pushing buggies up the hill.

  Jack isn’t on the practice range. He isn’t anywhere and he’s hard to miss. Jack is six-foot-four. He hits a golf ball further than I can sprint (without having a heart attack).

  Maybe he’s helping a student hunt for balls in the bush. That happens. But I can’t hear any crunching of sticks or leaves, and there are no shouts of “found it!” from the trees.

  Then, in the shadows draped across the twelfth green I see the golf bag — Jack’s bag — complete with blazing Nike tick. He’s dropped a glove or a cleaning rag on the grass at the bunker’s edge. It shines lemony against the grass.

  I open my mouth to call out, but years of ingrained golf club etiquette stops me. So, veering from the practice range, I head diagonally for the bunker on the twelfth. There’s a visible line not far ahead marking the end of the sprinklers’ reach, and as I step from wet grass to dry, I glance up to get my bearings.

  That’s when my tummy does this flip-splat. Like an omelette tossed wrong.

  There are two bags on the green, not one. The second is a Durbridge. I can see a woollen cover on the three-wood, coloured the bright blue and gold of the West Coast Eagles football team. My team.

  It’s my golf bag.

  Those are my golf clubs.

  Jack persuaded me to sell them to Marnie James, one of his students. She’s the club president’s daughter and he said it might buy him a few favours with Archibald James.

  My feet slow.

  If Jack is teaching Marnie how to play a bunker shot, why can’t I see their heads? Why can’t I see the glint of a swinging club? Where are the balls that should be popping up on to the green?

  Another few steps I’ll be close enough to peer over the rim, but there’s an alarm bell in my head that’s telling me I won’t like what I see.

  A woman’s giggle flutters out of the hole and I drop to my haunches on the grass.

  That scrap of fabric I thought was a glove? It’s a pair of lacy knickers.

  My hand snaps over my mouth so tight, I taste lipstick.

  A second giggle is interrupted by an ecstatic whimper, and a woman’s voice says: says, ‘I bet Jennifer never — aaah that feels great — did this.’

  ‘Jenn didn’t like… getting sand… in her hair.’ Jack’s voice is thick with lust. The words spurt in rhythmic thrusts.

  ‘Maybe, she should have — oh fuck me harder, Jacky — done it like this.’

  Jack moans, and my blood runs cold. That’s the sound he makes before he comes.

  I can’t be here when that happens. Can’t hear it. Can’t.

  So I run.

  Fast as I can for the carpark in my bare feet, Emmy’s shoes banging my hip, sprinting over wet grass, then bitumen that’s been baked all day and stings my feet. The burn is nothing compared with the ragged hole that’s been punched through my chest.

  The Corolla’s interior is warm. I’m already strapped in before I realise I’ve forgotten to get the keys from my pocket. I have to lift my backside, straighten my hips. Denim grates between my legs.

  Finally I have the keys in my hand, but I’m shaking so hard now they won’t fit the ignition.

  My heart hammers. In the stuffy silence of the car, my breathing is even louder.

  Winding down the window, I take a huge gulp of air bright with sunshine and the sea.

  I want my son. He’s the only thing pure enough to drive out the vision in my head.

  I need to get to Emmy’s.

  Concentrating hard on the picture of Seb’s blonde curls and sweet cheeks, I force myself to take deep breaths. A car accident now doesn’t help anyone.

  When I twist the key in the ignition, the old car starts first time and I reverse out of my spot.

  Rolling now, never coming back.

  ***

  Jack and I live in his house on O’Brien Street in Nedlands, not far from Sea Breeze. It’s his grandmother’s old house. He inherited it in her will.

  When I met Jack four years ago, this was the worst house on the best street. For a year after he asked me to live with him we were here most weekends, painting, gardening, working on the house. It’s not the best house on O’Brien Street, not yet, but it’s not the worst anymore.

  The garden used to be a mess of ivy and agapanthus with a hedge of holly bushes across the front that blocked out the light. There were roses in here, lovely old fashioned bushes that his grandmother nurtured, but we never knew how special they were till Jack chainsawed the holly, and I hoed out the ivy. Light and air flooded in and the roses bloomed.

  A neighbour stopped once when I was planting the new box hedge across the front fence. She said Old Mrs Bannerman had the best roses on the street, she said I wouldn’t believe my nose when they flowered.

  It’s not roses I smell as my feet slap the cement steps. It’s the slow-cooked beef ragout in red wine I slaved over earlier — Jack’s favourite — wafting from the kitchen window.

  Bastard.

  Shoving the key in the lock, I step into the hall and stop like a mouse figuring its next move in a maze.

  It doesn’t look like my house.

  There are no grubby fingerprints or spills on the timber floors. No crumbs or crackers, cars or blocks. All the Thomas jigsaw pieces, and the trucks, are packed away.

  I’ve vacuumed, mopped, tidied. Under the ragout, I smell eucalyptus oil from the polish I’ve rubbed over the staircase balustrading.

  The place sparkles, all because I made an effort.

  I pull the door shut behind me. It doesn’t quite slam.

  In the kitchen, I turn off the oven and take out the ragout, leaving the pot to cool on the stove. Then I run up the stairs. We keep our luggage in the study and I get the largest suitcase, and my travel bag, then the portable cot we’ve never used. Leaving that at the top of the stairs, I take the other bags into Seb’s room.

  Tigger watches me scoop pyjamas, T-shirts, shorts, tracksuits pants, socks and boots from the cupboards and shelves. I move fast.

  The door to our bedroom is open. The bed is plump and crisp, all fresh sheets and fluffed pillows. The nightgown I bought specially in the post-Christmas sales last week — red with a lace row of black roses stitched across a slashing neckline — drapes my side of the quilt.

  I trace the silk with my finger. It’s slippery. Sleek. I don’t even like red lingerie, but Jack does, and this scrap of expensive stupidity wasn’t about me.

  A tear wants to spill, but I swipe it away. What is it Emmy says? ‘Don’t get sad, Jenn. Get even.’

  Deliberately, I hold an image of Jack in my mind.

  Jack in the bunker — with me.

  He’s laughing, wind ruffling his brown hair as he tucks his T-shirt into his pants. I’m laughing too. My thighs are sticky with his sperm. I’ve got sand in my knickers that will take the next six holes to shake out.

  Jack always said that bunker was ours.

  When we’d tee off the top of the twelfth, he’d wink and say, ‘Ready for the fairway to heaven, babe?’

  Now it feels more like the highway to hell.

  Grabbing the nightgown, I stuff it in the drawer under the bed. Then I snap the button on the jeans and peel them from my legs, kicking the denim away. I jam the jeans into the space on top of the nightgown and shove the bedside drawer closed.

  Two minutes later, I’ve pulled a favourite white T-shirt and a stretch-cotton dress over my head, and I’ve found my sandals. They are so worn, any purple that was once in them is now faded grey-mauve.

  Three more minu
tes in the bedroom, one in the ensuite, and both bags are filled. I drag them downstairs. Go back up for the portacot and the box of nappies. In the kitchen I grab jars of Seb’s favourite baby food — Lamb Rogan Josh — and a packet of baby rice. Bottles. Bibs. Plastic spoons. Bowls. Plates. All of it goes in one of the green recycled shopping bags we keep under the sink.

  Loaded up, the Corolla wallows in Jack’s driveway like a pregnant hippo on wheels.

  I twist my key off my keyring, ready to slide it under the door, but as I turn it in the lock, my resolve wavers.

  Jack is the father of my son. He might not want me anymore, but he loves his little boy. If Jack ever took Seb without a word to me about where they were going — I’d go out of my mind.

  We keep a notepad and pen on the side table in the hall and I take them through into the kitchen. Staring at the pristine white paper, I think about what I want to say. The words pile and tumble in my head, filthy as coal.

  Part of me wants to lash out. Hurt him, like he’s hurt me.

  Part of me says I owe him no explanation. We’re not married. He’s the one who cheated. I should just tell him we’re finished and I’ll see him in court.

  I’m not much of a talker. I struggle to get words out right. But people take me seriously when I write. That’s what I do best.

  Dear Jack

  Congratulations on winning first prize in Cunt-of-the-Year.

  Please tell Marnie from me, I hope she’s enjoying my clubs. They were your choice, not mine, and I always thought they felt a bit soft in the shaft.

  I have to get away for a while. I need to think things through and I can’t do that here. Seb is with me. If there’s any emergency Emmy will know where to find me.