Page 14 of Fool Me Twice

“Everything okay, Evie?” Reeva asked after the class had finished and the students were filing out with their exercise mats tucked under their arms.

“Bye Evie,” a couple of the ladies called.

“Great class, Reeva,” someone else said.

“You seemed a little distracted,” Reeva said when the last of the students had gone.

“Was I?” Evie avoided her concerned gaze.

Reeva’s eyebrows shot up almost to her hairline. Evie hadn’t fooled her for a second. “Has it got something to do with Jaxon’s dad turning up?”

Reeva was a straight talker; it was one of the things Evie had liked about her when she’d turned up unexpectedly looking for a job a few years back. At first Evie had been sceptical though, felt she was far too cocky, and told her that if she wanted the job, she had to put her money where her mouth was.

Over the years, Evie’d met her share of gorgeous men and women who thought that all they had to do was turn up in a piece of lycra and shake their arse in front of a mirror for forty-five minutes a couple of times a week in return for free board and lodgings.

But after a session with Reeva, Evie knew she was the real deal and had hired her on the spot. They’d been friends ever since.

“I don’t know.” Evie shook her head as she rolled up her mat. “It just pisses me off that he swans around like... like he owns the place, and everyone sucks up to him because he’s some famous rock star, and Jaxon—“

“Jaxon’s a good kid.” Reeva reached out and placed her hand on Evie’s arm. “And he’s no fool.”

“I know, but I’m worried he’s going to get his hopes up about his father.” She pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “And then when Peter’s decided he’s had enough of playing daddy, he’ll pack his bags and disappear, like last time.”

“I’m sorry to say this, Evie, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.” Reeva took a deep breath. “I know what Peter did to you back then was really shitty, but I think he genuinely cares for Jaxon and wants to make up for the past.”

Evie sighed. Reeva was wise beyond her years and Evie knew she was right, but that didn’t mean she wanted to hear it.

“Anyway—“

“Did you hear that?” Evie asked, straining to listen above the music, still playing quietly in the background. “It sounded like an ambulance.” Evie’s blood ran cold. She dropped her mat and rushed outside, searching the beach for signs of what was going on.

Even as a child, she’d always hated the wail of the ambulance sirens or rescue team as they charged through the town, their flashing blue lights reinforcing the urgency of the mission. Maybe it stemmed from the time she’d found her grandfather lying beneath an upturned piece of machinery, pinning him to the ground. Her heaving grunts were laced with sobs as she tried her hardest to lift it, but it was far too heavy for a six-year-old. She stared wide-eyed as the straw turned red, screaming for help so loudly her throat burned.

She’d barely heard her grandmother’s footsteps above her screams, and her eyes were no longer focused on what was going on. All she saw was the crimson stain creeping toward her. Her grandmother sent her outside to look for the ambulance. At the time she felt as though her grandfather’s life depended on her finding that ambulance, and perhaps it did, but maybe her grandmother had done it so she could examine her husband without Evie’s screams ricocheting off the tin walls.

Waiting at the bottom of the dirt track, it felt like hours as she paced, looking this way and that. The siren wailing in the distance seemed to tease her, like a game of hide and seek; she could hear the breath of the hider, but couldn’t see them.

Just when she’d thought her heart would punch through her chest, the ambulance had appeared, racing toward her like some kind of saviour.

Now, as the icy fear gripped her chest, Evie raced toward the steps and down onto the beach. She stopped to badger a couple who were walking their dogs about what had happened. “Some kind of surfing accident,” they replied.

She saw a small group of people huddled together and a couple of paramedics sprinting across the sand. The water was pretty safe in the bays surrounding Waverly Bay, but where Mother Nature was concerned, there were never any guarantees.

Her heart raced as she neared the gathering. She could make out Gaz and Joey standing amongst the group, but where was Jaxon?

Catching sight of Jaxon, she let out a strangled sob. Thank God, he was okay. “Mum,” he called when he spotted her. “There’s been an accident.”

Evie pushed her way through the group of hangers-on. Her stomach lurched at the sight of the blood staining the golden sand brown, reminding her of her grandfather’s accident. “What happened?” she asked, trying to swallow down the bile creeping up her throat.

“We think the board hit him,” Jaxon said, taking a step closer to her. He slipped his arm around her shoulder and drew her in closer. “Mum, you’re shaking.”

“I’m fine,” she said, feeling anything but. “It’s your father you should be worried about.”

“He’ll be okay, won’t he?” he asked one of the paramedics.

“It’s probably just a nasty gash, head wounds tend to bleed a lot with the blood vessels being so close to the surface,” he said as he helped his colleague secure Peter onto the stretcher. “It’s difficult to see what’s going on with his knee because of all the swelling, but we’ll know more once the doctor’s taken a look.”

Evie, Jaxon and the others hurried behind, trying to keep pace with the paramedics as they carried the stretcher back to the ambulance. Jaxon accompanied Peter to the hospital, while Evie promised to follow in her car.

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