“You look nervous,” Noah said.
“I am,” she admitted. “Last time I was out here for the night—” she stopped, not really wanting to think about it too hard.
“It’s different today. You have all of us here this time.”
She nodded, but she still couldn’t help the sinking feeling in her stomach. Camping was not her favorite pastime. Even though she’d only tried it once before. Quite by accident.
She wanted to go back to the lab and immerse herself in her rocks. Rocks were safe. And she wanted to know that she would be sleeping in her own bed tonight. A bed with a mattress and cotton sheets.
“Did your parents take you camping often as a kid?” Noah asked after another minute of silence in which Abby’s thoughts churned over all the things that could possibly go wrong in a whole day away from civilization.
“Never. Mom isn’t a big fan of being outdoors. And she and Dad worked all the time. We didn’t have many family vacations.”
Noah shook his head. “I can’t imagine that.”
“Did your parents take you camping often?”
“All of our family vacations were camping when I was little. Our farm is miles from the beaches and it would be our Christmas tradition, to go camping at the beach,” he laughed. “As soon as I was old enough to pitch a tent my brothers and I used to go on adventures and camp on fields in the farm. Then we got older and we started going deer hunting with a few of our mates, so we’d go camping in the forests.”
“I’ve never even put up a tent before,” Abby mused.
“There’s a first time for everything,” Noah replied. He gave her a hesitant smile, looking shy all of a sudden. “I’m happy I get to be with you on all of these firsts of yours.”
Abby nodded absent-mindedly. She hadn’t fully heard what he was saying as she was too busy worrying about how silly she’d look trying to put up a tent with all the camping professionals she was with.
Noah didn’t say anything else for a little while after that.
The trip to the campsite took just under two hours. Abby had fallen asleep, despite the bumpy road. The window was down, and a cool breeze played across her face. It seemed like only a minute before Noah was playfully pushing her to wake her. “Wake up sleepyhead. We’re here.”
She climbed out of the truck and shaded her face with her hand. They were parked on a flat piece of land covered in dry grass that overlooked rolling sand dunes down to the beach. Small, dry-looking trees lined the sides of the campsite giving it a cozy feel. On one side of the clearing were two wooden picnic tables, sitting under the sparse shade the trees provided. On the other side, nestled in the trees, was a small building with the universal sign for toilet on the door. A faded wooden sign in front of a sandy path to the dunes proudly proclaimed this was a turtle nesting beach, so no dogs were allowed, clean up your rubbish and please leave the campsite how you left it. A light breeze blew up from the ocean, wafting bits of sand in the air.
Myra climbed out of the van and started handing out bottles to everyone. “Beer first, setting up later,” she declared. She pulled out bags of chips and settled herself on the picnic table with the chips and cracked her beer open, letting out a contented sigh.
Abby joined her, opting for a bottle of water instead. “It’s beautiful here.”
“Stunning isn’t it. Glad its empty today. In tourist season it’s full of old ducks like me in their motor homes, and they take up all the space. We’re lucky to get it to ourselves.”
The boys all seemed to finish their beers in record time and began pulling out the tent pieces from the truck.
Abby stood to go help but Myra put her hand on her arm. “Let them do it, hon. They can show off their survival skills and you and I can chill. There’s no reasoning with a man when he’s trying to put up a tent anyway. Way easier just to keep out of their way.”
She sank back gratefully onto the bench and sipped her water, watching in fascination as the men hammered in tent pegs, assembled poles and struggled with a large piece of fabric, until bit by bit a tent that looked as large as a house was erected. They called her and Myra up to help put what they called the “fly” over the top, a piece of tent that Noah explained was designed to keep off the rain. He caught Abby’s dubious look upwards at the expanse of blue sky and chuckled. “Just in case,” he said.
Adam brought out a speaker and started music. Abby helped Myra pull out bedding and arrange it inside the tent. The tent did indeed have three separate areas to it: each end had its own door and the middle section was set up for Adam and Paul. Noah and Aaron took one end and Myra and Abby set out their mats and sleeping bags in the other end. The tent was roomy, and Abby noted happily that there was plenty of room for her and Myra to sleep.
Not long after the tent was set up, John arrived with Amy and his three young kids in tow. His two daughters were five and six, and the youngest, a boy, was a year and half old with big blue eyes that made Abby’s heart melt. She and Myra sat with Amy and chatted as the boys helped John set up their tent before moving down to the beach.
The afternoon passed in a happy blur of sandcastle building with the kids, cold drinks from the cooler and splashing with the kids in the small waves. To Abby’s surprise, the two girls took an instant liking to Noah and it wasn’t long before they were following him around, asking to be picked up and thrown into the water. Abby sat on a towel on the sand next to Amy. “Gosh, he’s good with the kids,” Amy said, brushing sand off her towel. “I wonder if I can convince him to babysit for John and me.”
“I don’t think he’d take much convincing,” Abby remarked, watching Noah’s smiling face as he chased the giggling girls into the water.
“It’s funny, really. I’ve known him for as long as John’s worked here, and he’s always struck me as a bit of a party boy. You seem to bring out a different side to him. A softer side.”
They were interrupted by Adam announcing he was starving, and he was going to get started cooking, so they all headed up to the campsite to help him prepare dinner. In short order, a small portable gas barbeque was set up to cook sausages, and bread rolls and salad were set out.
A half hour later, they sat down to eat, and Myra pulled out a couple bottles of red wine for the adults and juice boxes for the kids, who were ecstatic to be included.
As the sun began setting, one of the young girls excitedly pointed towards the trees and the group turned to see a small kangaroo, slightly shrouded in the shade and busy munching on the leaves of the trees. It paid them no heed, and even with Amy trying with no avail to shush her daughters’ excited cries, it appeared as though it simply wasn’t bothered by the noise at all.
Abby, who hadn’t seen a kangaroo since the day she had accidently run one over, froze, watching it as it hopped slowly from tree to tree.
“It’s so sweet,” she breathed to Noah, who had somehow during the evening ended up sitting next to her. “I feel terrible for the one I hit.”
His breath was warm on her face as he replied. “It wasn’t your fault at all. They are notorious for jumping in front of cars.”
They sat for a moment more in silence. The kangaroo took one last bite of the leaves then hopped away. The group returned to their chatter, but Abby sat quiet for a moment longer. “To think that I was here for weeks and the first wild animal I saw was when it jumped in front of my car. There is so much beauty out here. And I was quite oblivious to it all when I first got here. I had my blinders on and could only see what was directly in front of my face.”
Noah grinned. “You’re not ignoring it anymore.”
She thought of their hike the other day and felt herself grinning back. “No, I’m trying not to ignore it anymore.”
The light slowly faded. Paul, Adam and John had pulled out of a pack of cards and begun a heated game of Gin Rummy with a small lantern to light the table. Myra poked Paul hard in the ribs as he uttered a word aimed at John that was not meant to be heard by the kids. Amy was starting
to round up her kids to move them into bed, much to their dismay.
“Girls, if you’re good and go to bed with your mum now I’ll take you swimming in the morning,” Noah called out.
It seemed his charms worked on adults and children. Amy shot him a grateful look as she herded them into their tent, before calling out a goodnight and crawling in with them. Adam turned the music down and resumed the heated card game, albeit with insults traded in a lower volume. Myra had polished off at least one more bottle of wine on her own and was humming quietly to herself before announcing she was off to bed.
Abby stood up to join her, yawning widely, and Noah gently tugged her arm. “Let me show you something first,” he said in a quiet, low voice.
He picked up one of the folded picnic blankets and led her down the sand dunes, using the light of his phone to illuminate their path. The night had gotten suddenly dark and the beams from the lantern where the others were playing cards didn’t reach this far. Noah laid out the blanket and lay down on his back. Abby sat next to him, slightly confused.
“Look up,” he said, pointing at the sky. He turned the light on his phone off.
Abby lay back and stared up at the sky, blinking at the sudden darkness then gasping at the sight of thousands of stars spread across the sky, so bright she couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed them earlier.
“Is that the Milky Way?” she asked, pointing up at a section of sky that was so heavily filled with stars it did indeed look like a milky section of sky. For some reason her voice came out as a whisper, as if talking out loud would break the magic of the moment.
“Yes,” he breathed back.
They lay in silence. The only sound to be heard was the gentle lapping of the water against the shore. They couldn’t hear anything from the campsite down here and it felt to Abby that they were the only two people in the world right now.
“I’ve never seen the sky like this in the city,” she whispered finally. “It looks so big.”
“You can only see the stars like this when you are far away from the towns and cities,” Noah whispered back. “It’s part of why I fell in love with this place.”
They lay there for a few more long minutes, until Abby noticed how chilly the air had become now that the sun had set. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.
“You’re cold.”
“Yes, but I don’t want to move.” Maybe it was the wine, or the stars, or the heavy silence, or the absence of the lonely feeling she’d had in the pit of her stomach since she realized Jed was out of her reach forever, but Abby liked lying next to Noah.
“Let’s get you off to bed,” Noah said, sitting up. As he sat up he brushed against her arm and Abby shivered again, but not from the cold. Noah helped her to her feet and picked up the blanket, shaking the sand from it before turning the light on his phone on again and leading her back up the beach to the campsite. Everyone had retired to their tents and the cards lay forgotten on the table.
Noah shone his light on the tent where Abby’s sleeping mat was set up and helped her to unzip the door.
“Thanks for showing me the stars,” Abby whispered. “It was—” she didn’t have words.
“Incredible,” he replied. His arm hung down and the phone illuminated the grass. Abby could only see his silhouette vaguely in front of her, but she could feel his eyes boring into her own.
“Goodnight,” he whispered, stepping backwards. His voice sounded hoarse, like he was coming down with a cold.
Abby knelt down and crawled into the tent, watching as his light moved to the other side of the tent. Over the sounds of Myra’s gentle snores she could hear the faint sounds of him unzipping the door on his side and the rustling as he clambered into his own sleeping bag. She shook her head and lay down, falling asleep instantly, her various night creams and face washes laying forgotten in her bag. Her dreams took her back to the lab at her home university, punctuated by Jed’s face telling her she was his favorite student, then morphing into the sculpted and tattooed body of Noah.
The following morning, Abby woke feeling refreshed despite her night spent fully dressed on the sleeping mat. She was pleased to find that there were no snakes in her sleeping bag, no spiders in her socks, and no scorpions in her shoes. Nothing had tried to sting, poison or eat her in the night. Camping wasn’t nearly as bad as she had feared it would be.
She stretched and yawned in the early morning light. It was actually rather fun.
She left Myra still snoring gently and inched out of the tent for an early morning walk along the beach.
Noah was there before her, already tossing a couple squealing little girls into the water, as John looked on with pride.
As soon as Noah spied her, he advanced on her with intent. “Ooooh, look. Another young lady to throw into the water.”
“Don’t you even think about it,” she warned him, shooing him away. The water looked way too cold, and it wasn’t hot enough yet that she needed to cool down. “I’m going for a walk along the beach.”
“I’ll join you.”
He gave John a cheery wave, abandoned him with his two girls who were already begging for their dad to come join them in the water, and took Abby by the hand.
They walked along for a while, hand in hand, sometimes wading along the damp sand at the water’s edge, and sometimes in the ripples of water. Abby focused on the feeling of the wet sand between her toes, the sea breeze on her shoulders, and the early morning rays of sun against her face. “It’s so peaceful here.”
Noah squeezed her hand. “I love getting away from it all. No work, no stress. Nothing but nature surrounding you. It’s good for my soul.”
Abby had to agree. She felt that a piece of her, a long forgotten and neglected piece, was slowly unfurling and blossoming here in the sand and the sunshine and the quietness.
For the first time she could remember, she was content to simply live in the moment, without allowing any day-to-day worries intrude into her. Her work, her research, her career—they all seemed to exist somewhere on another plane, in another reality, a long way away.
All that mattered was the feeling of Noah’s hand in hers, and the sand between her toes.
Abby was happily pottering around in her lab, tidying up rather than doing anything more constructive, when her computer played a tune that signaled an incoming Skype call. She put away the beakers she was holding and went to see who it was.
Not her parents. They almost never video called her, preferring email, as they didn’t want to interrupt her in the middle of something important. They didn’t like her to call them either, in case she interrupted them while they were working.
To her surprise, Jed’s face came up on the screen. He’d never called her during work hours before.
Her heart gave a little jump of excitement, and she told herself off for it, quite fiercely. He is going to be married, she chanted to herself. He is going to marry Julia. He is nothing to you.
Still, she couldn’t help smiling at him. “Hi Jed, what’s up?”
He didn’t smile back. His face was a solid frown of disappointment. “How is that paper going? You said you were going to write it up and send it to me this week.”
Guilt for having taken off an entire weekend just for fun immediately assailed her. If she hadn’t gone camping with Noah and her colleagues, she would’ve already had it drafted and sent off to him. She had always delighted in being able to complete her work early. She’d lived for his praise at her hard work and dedication.
Of course, if she hadn’t gone camping, she would have missed one of the best weekends of her life. Probably the best weekend ever. Not that that made her guilt any the less.
And what had her hard work and dedication got her? A couple journal articles and precisely nothing else. He was getting married to Julia. To someone fun and adventurous. She presumed that he wasn’t marrying Julia for her work ethic. “I haven’t quite finished it. I will have it to you by Friday though.”
&n
bsp; His frown deepened. “I need it today. I have to have time to read it and make any adjustments that are required, and I promised the editor of the journal that he would have it by Monday.”
She ran through in her head what was still left to do on it. Even if she was feeling in the mood for pulling an all-nighter, which she absolutely wasn’t, she wouldn’t be able to finish it in time. “Sorry, but it’s not going to be ready today. There’s still too much to finish.”
“You said last week that there were only a few more days’ work left. What happened? Why isn’t it finished?”
“I went camping with my colleagues here over the weekend,” she said evenly. She might be feeling guilty for not having it ready early, but she wasn’t going to be a pushover, not this time. “So I didn’t get a chance to work on it. As I said, I’ll have it done by Friday, as I promised. I may even have it for you by Thursday, but no guarantees. You’ll still have the weekend to make any changes.”
His face got even blacker than before. “Some of us,” he enunciated very clearly, ‘have plans for the weekend that don’t involve work.”
“Exactly.” she responded, irritated with his holier-than-thou attitude. “Some of us like to go camping occasionally. Especially when we are in a new country with a great group of new colleagues that we want to get to know better.”
“So your new colleagues are why you have been so unreliable,” he remarked snidely. “Are they all as slack as you have been lately?”
She hated disappointing him, but really, sometimes his expectations were a bit over-the-top. “I always said I would have it to you this week, and I will. Nothing has changed.” She knew she sounded defensive, but she felt under attack.
“Before you went to Australia, you would have all your work completed early. You would work all weekend on it. Every weekend.”
“We all have to grow up and find a life of our own outside of work some time,” she responded tartly. “I am finding Australia has a lot to offer.”
“No place will have anything to offer you if your work starts to suffer because of your social life. Maybe you should think about that for a moment next time one of your colleagues”—he positively sneered the word—“asks you to go off for the weekend.”
Headlong (Quinn Brothers Book 2) Page 8
