Finding Billie

By Priscilla Brown

For mechanic Billie, fixing cars is easier than fixing her love life. She runs her successful business, raises a teenage boy, and has a loving family, but she’s missing a special someone. When childhood friend Zac, whose family secretly left town years ago, calls into her service station by chance, they’re astonished to come across each other.

A freelance photographer, Zac shocks himself with the sudden need to stay a while in this small historic country town and get to know Billie again. Working together to deal with the alarming unsympathetic redevelopment of the town including loss of her business, they are concerned when related evidence surfaces of an unsavory clandestine past association between their families.

Their friendship blossoms; for Zac, struggling to cope after a personal tragedy, warm-hearted Billie is easy to talk to, but he cannot let himself love her. Billie is unsettled to find her long-mislaid hormones leaping into life, but dare she risk loving someone carrying so much baggage? Can Zac allow Billie to help him heal?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BWL Publishing Inc.
• Release date: Jul 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9780228603375

Priscilla Brown

Based in regional New South Wales, Australia, Priscilla has a varied career history, with seven different jobs to date. Some have been worked concurrently, while writing is always a part of her life. These, along with her love of travel in Australia and overseas, and a passion for craft galleries and people watching in cafés, inspire ideas, characters and settings for her contemporary romantic fiction.For more information about Priscilla's books including blurbs, reviews and purchase links, please visit her website: http://priscillabrownauthor.com

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Finding Billie

By Author Priscilla Brown

Digital ISBNs

EPUB 978-0-2286-0337-5

Kindle 978-0-2286-0338-2

BWL Print ISBN 978-0-2286-0339-9

Amazon Print ISBN 978-0-2286-0340-5

Copyright 2018 by Priscilla Brown

Cover art by Michelle Lee

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

Chapter One

If you’re who I think you are, you’re eight years late.

Billie clapped one hand over her mouth. What a ridiculous thing to say to this guy who had called into her service station only for petrol. Tim working on the forecourt filled the car, then the customer walked into the retail shop to pay her. Something about him seemed familiar. He fingered the lemons in a bowl on the counter as if he couldn’t believe they were real, never mind free, and slanted his left eyebrow. That did it. She’d only ever come across one person who could raise a single eyebrow at an angle like that. All these years later, she still remembered that quirk of his.

And now, such a stupid remark had just popped out.

Excuse me? The man sounded baffled, as well he might.

She should say, Sorry, I made a mistake, I thought you were someone I used to know. Instead, her rogue voice persisted, You’re Jamjar.

His sharp intake of breath told her she was right. Definitely Jamjar, this tall man with the tired grey eyes and the crinkly brown hair that looked as if he’d just pushed his fingers through it. He made a production out of taking his credit card from his wallet and tapping it onto the reader, maybe so he didn’t have to look at her.

You were called Jamjar at primary school right here in this town. She couldn’t stop herself raving on. We were in the same class. Your name is James Jarvis, yes?

Uh huh.

He placed his card and the receipt into his wallet, and half-turned his shoulders, but not his feet, as if he couldn’t decide whether to walk right out of the shop away from this woman who talked too much. Clearly, he didn’t want to have a conversation, just wanted to be on his way. Probably he thought her day had dragged; that she found the company of the teenager on the forecourt uninspiring and made her desperate for adult male company. But now she’d started, curiosity about her old friend won over courteous customer service. She was about to comment on the weather, always a reasonable conversation starter, especially in such a frigid winter as this, when he turned back to her.

Yeah, I used to be Jamjar.

Billie wanted to hug herself at what pure chance had delivered. Better, hug him. He must have realised his Uh ‘uh huh’ was at best inadequate, at worst, rude. She hid her smile.

And you’re… He frowned, as if with the effort of recall. You too had a nickname. Like mine, to do with your real name. Hilary Williams? Am I right?

She nodded. Spot on.

Hey, old Hilliebillie! You lived in the big house on the hill, opposite my family’s cottage.

Everyone calls me Billie. Welcome back to Limeburners’ Valley. It’s been a long time, seventeen, eighteen years. Are you going far?

Melbourne. I saw your service station notice on the freeway, and as well as the car needing a top up, I’m overdue for a break.

How long have you been driving?

Over four hours, from Sydney.

She shook her head. Without stopping?

Yes. I almost went into Moyston, forty minutes back, but I didn’t want to drive into a big town when I was so close to, er, we used to call this place Limey.

Still do. Good you came off the freeway here, as in your direction, it’s a long way to the next services. Plus it’s four-thirty, time for coffee better than you’d find on the freeway.

His left eyebrow shot up. Coffee? Here?

She pointed to a door at the side of the shop. We have a small area outside, with a patio heater. If you have time to stop, our espresso machine’s fired up.

Espresso?

Mr Jarvis, she said, mock-sternly, you might be in Limey, a falling-down town with a population of five thousand, but we do have standards. No chipped mugs of doubtful cleanliness, no last week’s re-heated dregs. She hoped he’d smile, but his face might be a mask.

Thanks. I could use a double shot of long black. Should I move the car?

No, there’s room at the other pumps. Go out, coffee will be just a few minutes.

As he walked through the door she’d indicated, the man who’d been Jamjar as a young boy sensed Billie’s eyes on his back. Could this unusual situation of coffee on the patio be some kind of trap? But why would she want to trap him? Not for any indication of wealth, for sure. The rented mud-coloured station wagon was an inexpensive model found on any road. His faded jeans and black polo neck sweater under a scuffed brown leather jacket could be the travelling gear of thousands of men. He’d stashed his bags and valuable camera equipment out of view under wraps.

The offer of coffee was probably her standard pickup line for any solo guy around her age. The fact that they’d known each other as children made it easy for her, and sudden apprehension flew through him. Her age? Their age. They were thirty-three, surely too old for a pickup. But he’d been out of circulation for so long, he wouldn’t know. He liked her cheerfulness and her warm interested smile, a kind not associated with the usual fill-up, pay-up and get-the-hell-back-on-the-road experience. But he was here for a caffeine shot, not for conversation, and hopefully she would just bring the coffee and go back to her cash desk. He’d be off as soon as the caffeine hit his system.

He settled next to the heater, on the bench at one of the three timber tables in the small courtyard. The area had a homely feel, as if it were someone’s private patio. Even though it was winter, pink and white flowers trailed from hanging baskets, and miniature jugs on the tables contained small yellow flowers with black centres that reminded him of a cat’s face complete with whiskers. A real cat, large and ginger-striped, snoozed on one of the benches.

Out on the forecourt, the full driveway service was a novelty. He hadn’t known what to do with himself as the teenager filled the tank and cleaned the windscreen, so he took in the details of the cutest fuel stop he’d ever come across. The timber building was painted scarlet, with the woodwork around the doors and windows picked out in white. Tubs each side of the shop door contained the same flowers as here on his table. Were they pansies? He couldn’t be certain, though he thought the pink and white ones in the hanging baskets were geraniums. Living away from a temperate climate for years, he’d forgotten a lot of details.

The sign outside the shop door announced Billie’s Bar, while the sign above the closed scarlet roller door of the adjoining building read Billie’s Fix-It. The bright colours, the intriguing signage and the flowers cheered up the dullness of a chilly Friday afternoon in this southern New South Wales town. And in some strange way, along with the friendliness of both Billie and the boy, lifted his bleak mood.

Inside the shop was not what he would have expected either. Soft piano music played. Tidy shelves held automotive bits and pieces. A cold drinks cabinet and a table of chocolate bars and other snacks stood in one corner. On a wall where other shops might pin a girlie calendar, hung a poster vivid with the blue and white of a Greek island village. Surreptitiously, in case Billie came out, he pulled his Greek island photo from his wallet. Tracing the outlines of the four people, he pressed his lips together.

He slid the photo away as she stepped onto the patio. She placed his coffee and a plate of shortbread before him. Hilliebillie! He could recognise the girl she’d been. She’d worn her dark hair long, but now it curved around her face with a short glossy fringe, emphasising her plump cheeks and generous mouth. The mouth he’d kissed for the first and only time the day before he’d left this town for good. Unlike his fifteen-year-old self, he no longer had any interest in checking mouths for kissability. Yet he couldn’t help noticing how Billie’s scarlet lips matched the shade of her fleecy sweatshirt and of the paint job on the service station’s buildings. Billie’s Bar was embroidered on the sweater’s front, and on its back, as she turned to boost the heater, he read Billie’s Fix-It. Her black jeans had seen better days, and he wondered why she wore steel-capped boots. Her dark eyes regarded him with a gleam of interest.

His intention to toss back the pick-me-up and keep moving faded under her presence. Are you busy, or can you join me with a coffee? He shocked himself. He hadn’t asked a woman to join him with, or in, anything for two years.

The workshop’s closed, Tim looks after the forecourt, and my paperwork can wait. Back in a sec.

She returned with a speed that told him she already had her cappuccino made, and was hoping, or intending, to join him. He emptied three sugar sachets into his drink and stirred with, to his surprise, a quality spoon not a plastic stick, and sipped.

He raised his mug towards her. Your coffee is good.

The glow of her smile went a little way to warming his frozen heart. I told you our standards are high. Tim and I did a professional barista course.

That’s Tim at the pumps? He makes coffee too?

Yes and yes. He works here after school and at weekends.

A useful employee. Employee? The thought that Tim could be Billie’s son came at him with disconcerting speed. He hadn’t paid enough attention to the boy to consider any family resemblance. He looked sixteen, seventeen. Had Billie been such a young mother? She must have slept with some jerk not long after he’d moved away. He could hardly believe this of the Hilliebillie he’d known, and disappointment in her inched into his mind. Watching her fold her hands around her mug and sip her drink, he wondered if she’d married. She used her single name and wore no rings, but those facts signified nothing.

She nodded. Yes, he’s a good kid. Have a shortbread.

He accepted her transparent change of topic and a biscuit. Do you work here full time? He had trouble grasping that this daughter of parents who owned not only the limestone quarry but a good part of the district worked at a service station.

More than full time. She pointed a shortbread at him. I own the business. Bar is the forecourt and the café, Fix-It is the workshop, and I’m the mechanic.

You own it? Really? He pulled himself up. No reason a woman shouldn’t be a mechanic. And that explained the steel-capped boots.

Get over it. She rolled her eyes, as if she were used to men’s surprise. I’m fully qualified. I’m the only mechanic and the only service station in town, and business is satisfactory.

Good for you. He cursed such an inadequate response, but it did come as a jolt to find the Hilliebillie he’d known as the girl who’d topped their primary school class and then attended a smart boarding school, making her living fixing cars in this two-bit town. He’d have expected her to hold some high-flying position in a big city.

He brought himself back to the present. So you’re still in here in Limey. What did you mean about me being eight years late?

Billie straightened her shoulders, wishing she’d never said anything about it. At least she’d said late, rather than too late, which would have been truly humiliating. We were fifteen when your family left. You and I spent a lot of time together until you went to high school, and I went away to school, but, Jamjar, sorry, James…

Zac.

Zac? Okay, Zac. She’d ask him about his name change when she had this out of the way. In the summer holidays our old crowd got together. We were down at the swimming hole when you told me you had to move and…

I remember that. But what am I supposedly eight years late for?

It’s embarrassing, she muttered, because so much must have happened to you since.

The way he suddenly gripped his mug, white knuckles contrasting against his tanned fingers, told her she’d hit a nerve with that remark. Something must have happened to him, something that still troubled him.

Then do I need to hear it? His voice sounded tight, tense.

She re-arranged the pansies in their tiny jug. No, of course not. I talk too much. Just that I was surprised to see someone from so long ago turn up.

A taut silence hung on the air between them.

I might regret this, he said, but suppose you tell me.

Um, okay. We said, that is, you and me, and, look, um…Zac, it didn’t mean anything, it was just a bit of fun, our teenage way of saying goodbye. She tossed back more than a respectable mouthful of coffee, and hiccupped with her hands over her mouth. Excuse me.

I do remember we’d been friends through primary school. When you came home from boarding school, we still used to do a few things with the other kids. His left eyebrow rose. So what is it you’re embarrassed about?

Yes, well, I honestly don’t know if the idea was yours or mine, or if it just kind of… um, appeared, that… um, that if neither of us had a partner by the time we were twenty-five, we’d… um, we’d find each other.

Colour washed his cheeks. Another memory of Jamjar plucked at her mind. He blushed! She liked men who blushed. But she had embarrassed him enormously. Mortified, she clapped both hands over her mouth.

Christ. Zac felt heat flooding his face. He bent his head over his mug, cursing the fact that at thirty-three he still couldn’t control this. The way Billie put her hands over her mouth tripped his recollection of that day. She’d done it then, after she’d made the statement, or suggestion, or whatever it was, and he was certain it had come from her, not him. Surely they had never done more than hold hands as they jumped off the bridge to swim in the creek, or sat in the back row of the small cinema? And at that last minute of togetherness, the kiss. He took a deep breath and looked up, schooling himself to keep his expression neutral.

So quite by accident, we have, he said. Eight years and a lot of stuff late.

Two bright circles of red shone on her pink cheeks. I’m sorry, I was quite out of order in saying anything. Can I get you another coffee?

No thanks. I must hit the road.

Not going all the way to Melbourne tonight?

He stood up. I’ll make a stop somewhere.

The cat woke, jumped off the bench and padded towards Zac. He reached down to stroke it. Yours? he asked.

Yes. Tigger.

Like the tiger character in the story book. How come he’d let that out? He picked the cat up, hoping to hide his sudden confusion. Hilliebillie might be an old friend, but he didn’t intend to share any part of his life with her.

She stared at him. You know…

He clamped his face closed, slicing off anything she might add. A change of subject, then he really must leave.

I drove along the main street before I came here, he said, holding the cat on his shoulder and hearing its purr loud in his ear. I remember busy shops, but now too many are empty. And there are posters about platypus. Some seem for them, and some against. What’s going on?

The platypus are still living in the creek. For now. This town is divided.

About platypus? They’re harmless.

Of course. But they may be harmed.

He sat down, the cat on his lap. Who’s harming them?

A moment ago, you were ready to leave. It’s getting cold and dark, and if you’re really leaving, you had better go. Are you sure you want to hear about Limey’s problems?

I don’t like to think of wildlife being threatened. It’s the conservationist in me.

Is that what you do? Something with conservation?

Indirectly. I’m a photojournalist specialising in the natural environment.

Wow! Then you will be interested in what’s going on here.

He surprised himself with a sudden need to stay. An evening behind the wheel held no appeal. Of more interest was discovering what problem threatened the platypus, and… and catching up further with Hilliebillie. Really leaving, she’d said. As if she had some doubt about it.

Melbourne would be about six hours from here, and I’d planned to stop overnight a couple of hours further on. He spoke slowly, weighing each word so as not to appear over keen to stay in Limeburners’ Valley. But maybe there’s somewhere in Limey?

Billie wrapped her arms around her chest, hoping he would deem the movement due to the cold. But in fact, the idea thrilled her that Zac, with his professional concern, could become involved in this sticky situation. No, he wouldn’t. He might show interest now, but he’d called in by chance. Still, since he’d decided not to leave tonight, she had a few minutes more to enjoy talking with old Jamjar.

She turned the heater off. Come into the shop, it’s freezing out here and… She held her hand out, watching a drop of water fall onto her palm. …it’s starting to rain. Sleet was forecast. She picked up the coffee mugs and plate now empty of shortbread. Bring Tigger in. You’re honoured he’s taken a liking to you, he’s choosy about his humans. We close at five-thirty, and Tim will be in the shop with the heating on.

Tim sat at the counter, plugged into his iPod. The fingers of one hand were using his laptop, while the other clutched a triple-decker sandwich from which dripped bits of lettuce and tomato. One day she might convince him that using a plate wasn’t wussy. He pulled the earbuds from his ears.

Just finished this assignment. Kid stuff. I’ve cleaned outside. He shoved the remains of the sandwich into his mouth and wiped crumbs from the counter into a waste bin. Closing the laptop, he stood and picked up a sports bag, football boots and a parka. I’m off.

Thanks, she said. Have a great game.

See ya. Tim touched her shoulder, and inclined his head towards Zac. Then turned back to Billie. You’ll be okay?

Zac understood the boy realised he was leaving Billie—his mother?—with a strange man. Billie clearly read this too, for she smiled at Tim.

It’s fine. Zac’s an old school friend turned up from nowhere. We have a bit to catch up on.

Ah. Tim shrugged into his parka and opened the shop door, letting in an explosion of icy air. He closed it behind him, opened it a fraction, and put his head around it. He raised his eyebrows at Billie.

She nodded. Yes, really, Tim.

Okay.

This time, he closed the door with a bit more noise. Was the boy concerned about leaving her? Why?

Nice boy, Zac commented. A boy with fair hair and blue eyes. Billie was dark, but it took two sets of genes. How old is he?

Sixteen and a half. He’s a big help. She pulled two stools from behind the counter, and Tigger jumped onto one of them. About you staying. The pub opposite would be your best bet, with a motel at the back. The food’s good. Ginger Johnson owns the place, and he’s the chef. Do you remember him from school?

Can’t say I do. Picking the cat up, Zac sat on the stool with the purring animal on his lap.

Red hair, chubby. Had an early interest in food, as he liked to steal your lunch because you had better sandwiches than he did.

Zac fisted one hand. I got it! I bloodied his mouth one day so he couldn’t eat my food.

Billie laughed. So you did. You may hear about the platypus in the pub, so I’ll give you my version. She crossed her arms. Firstly, Limey has a brand new jail out beyond the railway.

I pulled over on the freeway exit ramp where it curves and you can look down over the town, and that must be the large grey building I saw. With new-looking houses nearby.

For the Corrective Services staff when the jail opens soon. More residents. Plus the inmates’ visitors. Also, a number of people who work in Moyston are moving here because property is cheaper. So a company called Village Malls sees an opportunity. Apparently they specialise in what they describe as ‘enhancing small town shopping experiences’. She made air commas around the description. Agreed, their project would create jobs, though most of the construction workers would come from out of town.

Where do they want to build?

Right here! She waved her hands around the shop. "Over my business