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Aaron had made a point not to seek out any information about Julie’s life after he left. On the few occasions he had allowed himself to think about her, he’d imagined her happy and carefree on the farm. She’d had lots of ideas on how to improve the pastures and increase their sheep-carrying capacity. Tony didn’t have any biological kids of his own, and he’d always treated Julie as if she was his, right from the start. Tony and Connie were happy for her input, and it seemed that she was destined to take the farm over one day. He wondered what’d happened to change her mind. Why had she left the country to head to Brisbane? But those questions might take him down the path of his own reasons for leaving, so he wisely decided to leave that topic alone, for now. For some reason, he’d never been able to imagine her married. At the time, he’d told himself it was because there was no one who would suit her in that little hick town. But perhaps he’d been kidding himself.
“Why didn’t you go back to Dalgety when all this happened?” He would’ve thought that was where she might’ve felt most secure. As far as he knew, Julie had only spent a few weeks every year during school holidays at Stormcloud. He assumed her connection would be stronger with Roseby Downs.
“Because Mum would’ve freaked out. Even though I’d love nothing better than to freak Mum out.” She gave a wicked little grin, and Aaron remembered how Julie had always liked to push her mother’s buttons, just to get a rise out of her. It was an interesting mother-daughter relationship, and while they were close, they were also different in lots of ways. Aaron had no idea where Julie got her sassy side from. It certainly wasn’t from Steve; even his short acquaintance with the man told him that. And while Connie had loved a laugh, she was more uncompromising than Julie.
“But I also knew I’d be more easily found down there,” Julie continued. “Because I kept Mum’s name, and all that.”
“You’re probably right,” Aaron agreed. If she was trying to make a clean break from her old life, Stormcloud was the better choice. Her connections with the luxury lodge would be less well known. He held up a hand to let her know he was about to make some noise, then he quickly drilled two holes into the wooden door. “Go on,” he encouraged, blowing the sawdust away.
“It was a sort of serendipity, actually,” Julie stopped shuffling the cards long enough to smile up at Aaron. His heart shifted in his chest. Her smile still called to him. “Steve phoned me only a few days after the…the break-in, and asked if I could possibly lend a hand. They were going through a tough time. I’m not sure if you heard, but one of the staff, Karri, was found dead in a flooded creek.”
Aaron nodded. Daniella had given him a quick rundown in the meeting room earlier, but he’d also certainly heard the rumors and read the newspaper articles—it’d been a big story at the time. It turned out that another one of the staff had been embezzling money from the station, and had killed Karri to stop her from exposing the scheme.
“Dad was beside himself with worry, and he needed help, as another girl had left a month or so ago, leaving him short-handed. I jumped at the chance to get back on a horse. I missed it. All the hard yakka, and the dust and heat and flies.”
Aaron made a noise of quiet disbelief.
“No, don’t laugh. I know it sounds strange, but all that time cooped up in an office, it changed me. I spent five years with that marketing firm, sitting at a desk day after day. And then with this stalker… Well, it just felt so good to get out into the open air again, feel the sunshine. Get that satisfying physical exhaustion at the end of the day. You remember that, don’t you?”
Of course he did. Did he miss it, though, like she seemed to be implying with her questioning gaze? Yes. And no. And even if he did miss it, his life was in the city now. Even if he moved on from Shield, he’d always want to stay in the protection game. He was surprised at how uniquely suited he’d been to becoming a bodyguard. He slipped into the role so easily. There’d been a raft of physical and mental tests he needed to pass. And even though he had no military training, he’d learned the basic skills quickly. After a few months of intensive training in hand-to-hand combat and weapon handling, he seemed to have a knack for it, an innate knowledge that it took other men years to learn.
Perhaps he had his father to thank for that. The thought brought a scowl to his face. Aaron hated to think that his father had passed on any of his genetic traits. Especially these darker characteristics. But there was no other explanation as to why he was so good at what he did. His father hadn’t been a nice man, and as far as Aaron was concerned, he had no redeemable characteristics at all. He clenched his fist around the screwdriver. He’d certainly show his deadbeat father exactly how he felt about him if he ever ran into him. But that was unlikely to happen; he didn’t even know the man’s last name.
“The other reason I moved here was to help Daniella promote the station. She’s always hinted—and you know her hints are far from subtle—that she thought the station might become more profitable if only she could get a handle on the social media aspect of it all. With my marketing degree, I knew I could help her. It was a chance to get back into doing the things I most loved about marketing, yet be away from all the hype and pressure of the corporate business world.”
“It sounds like you’re good at what you do.”
“I was… I am,” she admitted, flipping cards over on the table. “But being good at something doesn’t always mean you find joy in it.”
“True.” It seemed like Julie had become a lot more philosophical. She used to run at things like a bull at a gate. Even though he was good at his job, and he couldn’t see himself doing anything else, there were times when he wondered what it might be like to do something else. To be someone else. Without the spectre of his father hanging over his head. Not that he’d ever admit to wanting to settle down and have a family, because that was definitely not on his agenda. He was never going to have children.
“What about you?” She waved a hand at him and grinned. “I admit, I sometimes wondered what’d become of you.” Aaron noticed the tips of her ears turning pink, but she waded on, pretending to ignore her reaction. “But never in a million years did I ever imagine you wanting to join a security company. It just seems so…”
So what, he wondered? So out of character? Perhaps it had been. But he was no longer the man he’d once been. All his priorities were different now.
He took his time fixing the latch to the door and positioning the screw so he could formulate his answer. “Maybe it came as a surprise to you, but I slipped into it fairly easily. I got a job as a bouncer at a nightclub almost as soon as I got to Sydney.” He winced, and rolled on with his story, hoping she wouldn’t ask him why he’d left to go to Sydney in the first place. “I think because of my size, it was easy to get that job. I met Jake a year after I moved to Sydney. He and his mate Timothy were just starting up Shield Solutions, and they recruited me. Took a chance on me.”
“Oh. Okay.” Julie wouldn’t look at him. “So, what is it exactly that you do all day? I mean, you’ve been here less than two hours and you’re fixing a bolt to a door. That’s not how I would imagine a bodyguard’s day to go.” She raised a hint of a smile, showing her straight, white teeth for a mere instant.
Aaron drew in a deep breath. He’d been asked this question before, but still found it hard to encompass everything that went into being a protection agent. “It’s different every day. One day I might be a driver. Which often means waiting in a car for hours, or carrying a client’s shopping bags.” Aaron grunted. How many times had he had to do that? Especially with one client, the wife of a rich diplomat, who thought Aaron was her own personal shopping assistant. “Other times I work as a sort of personal assistant, helping clients work out their schedules and routines to make sure they stay safe. Sometimes I’m required as a personal protection agent, and then I have to stick real close to a client, follow them everywhere. You can never underestimate anyone when you’re on guard.”
“What kind of people do you look after? Do you really rub shoulders with the rich and famous?”
“Sometimes,” he admitted. “We get all sorts. Politicians, celebrities, government big shots, wealthy families.” He wanted to add that she fell into that last category, but didn’t think she would appreciate it. “Our job is to save them from harm. That’s why we carry a weapon.”
“Aren’t you ever scared? You might get hurt, or…” She didn’t finish her thought, her voice small but her blue eyes big and round.
“Nah.” Aaron picked up a hammer and adopted a cocky posture. “You get hurt, hurt ’em back. You get killed…walk it off.”
“What?” She looked at him, flabbergasted that he could be so flippant. “Wait. I recognize that.” Her hand went up in the air. “Isn’t that a quote from a Captain America movie?” She laughed as he raised an eyebrow in her direction. “Sorry, but I’m a bit of a Marvel movie buff,” she said by way of explanation. “And I’m sure that’s something Captain Steve Rogers might say.”
“Actually, yes, it is.” He lay down the hammer and stood, wandering over to where she sat. “I’m a Marvel fan myself. I’ve seen them all. Probably watched most of them at least three or four times.”
How interesting, they had something in common. She’d never professed a liking for the movies back when he’d first known her. This was a new thing.
Julie turned her watercolor-blue eyes up to him. “I think my favorite quote is by Nick Fury.” She pursed her lips and studied him for a few seconds. He thought he knew what she was going to say next, and he flinched inwardly. “I still believe in heroes.”
Yep, that was the one. Ducking his head, he turned away. One thing was for sure; he was no hero.
