Page 12 of Ruby’s Outback Love

Brisbane QLD

PHIL

I lifted my glass in a toast with absolutely no cheer or enthusiasm. Francine smiled at me, but I didn’t have it in me to smile back. I didn’t want to be where I was, but I had no choice, Mum and Dad had taught me to own up to and take responsibility for my mistakes. I’d stuffed up a few times in my life, like when I’d stolen a bottle of scotch from dad’s liquor cabinet, headed to the river and drunk the entire contents. I’d been ill for almost a week and mum had still made me go to school and gym training. I’d felt like I would keel over and die, I never again touched dad’s liquor. It was a lesson well learnt.

Despite the bad decisions I had made over time, none had the power to completely destroy me like this one did. How could I have been so fucking stupid? Why had I allowed Francine into my apartment? The decision had cost me everything. I knew it had lost me the love of my life. I’d seen Ruby’s text from the previous day and knew she’d found out. Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. How had my dreams for the future, a future with Ruby, turned to shit?

When I’d visited Bourke only a couple of months earlier, declared my feelings for Ruby and made love to her, I was the happiest I’d ever been. I was planning a future with the woman of my dreams. The woman who literally meant everything to me. What happened, you ask? Let me enlighten you…..

A month before I’d made the decision to approach Ruby, Francine had turned up at my apartment in Brisbane in tears. She had broken up with Brian. It hadn’t surprised me. One of my female colleagues at the station, a good friend of Francine’s, had mentioned how the couple constantly argued and fought. Apparently, Francine didn’t think Brian was making the right moves to get him to the pinnacle of politics fast enough.

Seeing her tears made me feel sorry for her so I’d invited her in. Stupid, right? I’d known she was devious and sneaky. I’d learnt a long time ago; she wasn’t to be trusted. We had still been together when she’d taken up with Brian and the two had begun fucking. But I did have a history with her, and she’d been desperately upset. So, as I said, I invited her in.

One thing led to another. We hugged. Kissed. And eventually fell into bed, fucking the night away like a pair of energizer bunnies.

The next day, I sat her down and explained that, even though I cared about her, it was Ruby I loved and who I wanted a future with. She insisted we were good together and we could make it work. I disagreed, telling her it would never work while I loved someone else. She argued briefly, but conceded I was probably right.

She left my apartment and I made plans to visit Ruby in Bourke the following month when I had a few days off. I needed to tell her how I felt. I needed to know if she felt the same about me.

I’d been honest with Ruby when I told her Francine and I were no more than friends who occasionally texted each other, we wouldn’t be getting back together. What I hadn’t been honest about was how Francine and I had recently fucked. I hadn’t seen the need to upset my woman.

Before I’d left Bourke to head back to Brisbane, I promised Ruby I would terminate contact with her adversary. It was a promise I had every intention of keeping. I wanted Ruby, no one else.

When I returned home, I texted Francine and told her – for the sake of my relationship with Ruby, there would be no further contact. She reluctantly agreed.

Ruby and I spoke on the phone, texted and facetimed every day. All was perfect in my world.

Until …..

***

Francine arrived on my doorstep, in tears. Again. What she proceeded to tell me, shattered my world into a million pieces. She was pregnant – the baby was mine. I had no cause to doubt her. She had an ultrasound picture to prove her pregnancy to me and I was absolutely sure, she had been with no one else at the time. The time we had fucked fitted perfectly with the date she was due.

I allowed her inside, grabbed a beer and dropped onto the couch. Francine was babbling away excitedly, flapping the photo at me. I tuned out. I was in a daze. How could I have been so fucking stupid to believe her when she’d assured me she was using contraception? Why the fuck hadn’t I used a rubber?

When she dropped down beside me and placed her hand on my knee, I turned to face her. Anger at my stupidity bubbled within me.

“I thought you said you were on the pill?”

“I stopped taking it about a month before Brian and I broke up, it was making me ill. I thought it would take a while to work out of my system so when you asked…..” She shrugged her shoulders.

“You lied.”

“Sort of.”

I went on alert, grabbing at straws. “If you and Brian were fucking after you stopped taking precautions, how do you know it’s not his?”

“He used a condom once he knew I was off the pill; he didn’t want to get caught out.”

“And I was too stupid to do the same.”

We spoke for a few hours; I was desperate to find a way out of the mess I’d gotten myself into. I wanted a life with Ruby, not Francine. It was useless, Francine was determined to keep the baby and insisted, she wanted me in her baby’s life. I asked her to give me a few days to think about what had been dumped on me.

During the following weeks, I continued speaking with Ruby. She sensed something was off. I told her I was on a tough case; it wasn’t exactly a lie. She believed me.

Francine seemed to sense it was a bad idea to push me for a decision on what I wanted to do, and although we spoke daily, she stayed away.

I still hadn’t decided anything when three weeks later, mum and dad sent a message telling me they were coming to Brisbane for a visit.