Beneath Outback Skies

by Alissa Callen

  His eyes narrowed. ‘That’s funny. The last time I checked, the homestead didn’t have dirt floors.’

  ‘No comment,’ she said as she passed him the boot.

  He accepted it with one hand and offered her his other. She curled her fingers around his and stood up. Less than an arm’s length separated them. She breathed in the heady scent of his aftershave tinged with diesel. Her fingers tightened their grip on his hand as she balanced herself. His eyes darkened. Shallow breaths rushed past her lips. It didn’t matter if Tait was leaving on Sunday. It didn’t matter if he hadn’t been honest with her about why he was here. All that mattered was that he kissed her again until her senses melted and until it wasn’t only her self-control that went up in flames.

  She swayed forward.

  Something shifted behind his eyes, like dense clouds blotting out the sun.

  The strong hand she held onto like a lifeline gently pulled from her grasp. ‘So you want the toe …’ Tait cleared his throat. ‘The whole toe cut out?’

  ‘Thanks.’ She searched his impassive face. ‘That would be great.’

  ‘No worries. I’ll do it now.’ He looked toward Bundy. ‘Well, after I’ve cleaned up yet another puppy piddle.’

  Paige followed his line of sight to where a clear puddle spread behind Bundy. He stopped chewing the sneaker and gazed at them with large eyes as if to say, ‘What?’

  ‘Bundy,’ she said, ‘you’re nothing but a pee-machine. I only just took you outside.’

  Tait disappeared in search of the bucket.

  She stared at the empty doorway. That would teach her to be greedy. She’d obviously used up her Tait-kiss quota. The intensity of his eyes may have given her false hope his mouth would meet hers, but there’d been no mistaking his guarded expression or the way he’d pulled away from her.

  She withheld a sigh. And if she were honest, he’d done the right thing, for both of them. He may not be the infuriating city boy she once thought him but next week they’d be living in worlds separated by far more than distance. While it also hadn’t been his call to hide why he was at Banora Downs, the fact his polished words had masked the truth troubled her. A ‘been there done that’ t-shirt already sat in her cupboard. She didn’t need another one to remind her that city boys could be the kings of empty promises.

  She bent to pick up the closest shoe and returned it into the trunk. She had to get herself together. She couldn’t let yearnings for the tender brush of a man’s lips on hers and for the love her parents had shared cloud her judgement.

  The telephone rang from the office. She went to stand before remembering she was as slow as a one-legged galah. The phone stopped ringing and she heard the indistinct rumble of Tait’s deep voice. She sat back on the stool and busied herself with packing away the last of the shoes. Whoever had called, Tait would either take a message or bring her the phone. His boots sounded in the hallway before he appeared, hands empty and a furrow between his brows.

  ‘That was Dennis from next door,’ he said.

  She straightened, a gumboot hanging forgotten in her hand. ‘Was he calling about the feral dogs?’

  Tait slowly nodded. ‘He’s just seen them heading north. He said they’d either go left to Killora Downs and water or go right to … here.’

  She dropped the gumboot into the trunk and started shuffling toward the door. ‘Well, they’re not going to snack on our cattle.’

  Tait’s hand settled on her arm, halting her. ‘He also said you’d have a few hours. He reckons, if they do come your way, your cattle might be in trouble late afternoon or tonight when it cools down.’ His fingers slid up her forearm to cup her shoulder. ‘What can I do?’

  The word ‘nothing’ formed in her head but didn’t make it past her lips. The warmth and strength of his touch flowed through her. If there was a time she needed Tait by her side, it would be now. She might be able to shoot a rifle – she flinched as she put too much weight on her broken foot – but she couldn’t drive.

  ‘Go pack your toothbrush and then we’ll get the swags.’ She gave him a grim smile, ‘Tonight, we sleep under the stars.’

  Paige settled herself into the camping chair. The smell of meat cooking on a campfire might tease her taste buds, and her father’s rifle might be within reach behind her in the ute, but unease continued to fray her nerves. She scanned the trees to the left of the holding paddock. Had there been movement? She leaned forward and peered through the fading light. Her hands gripped the side of the chair. Dog? She unclamped her hands from the chair as a small, grey form emerged from the bush and stood on its hind legs, ears twitching as it scented smoke. Wallaby.

  ‘Paige, you’re wound up tighter than a toy car,’ Tait said from where he stood beside the fire, turning kebabs on the wire grill. ‘If the dogs come, we will handle them. Just relax.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Yes you can.’ Tait used tongs to move the kebabs onto two plates. He walked over to her. ‘These usually go with a good bottle of red, but here, try these. They are my speciality.’

  She glanced at the scrub again before accepting the plate. Despite her tension, her mouth watered as she inhaled the aroma of the kebabs.

  ‘Thanks.’ She looked down at green capsicum, cherry tomatoes, onion slices and beef chunks Tait had threaded onto a skewer. Simple, inexpensive ingredients he’d turned into a gourmet feast. ‘You didn’t tell me you could cook.’

  He grinned. ‘There are lots of things you don’t know about me.’ His smile suddenly slipped and he swung away.

  Did he not even have a single brain cell in his head? What was he doing saying such a thing to Paige? He had to keep everything she didn’t know about him under wraps. Both she and Connor couldn’t discover the real reason why he’d come to Banora Downs. A reason that stemmed from just one deep-seated emotion. Guilt. Guilt for what he’d done. But most especially for what he hadn’t done. He placed some small logs on the fire with unsteady hands. And in now trying to assuage the guilt that kept him awake at night, he was forced to conceal who he was.

  He looked across at Paige as she ate a piece of kebab. But it wasn’t only his identity he struggled to hide, he also battled the magnetic pull she wielded on him. It had taken the last ounce of his willpower this morning not to kiss her when he’d pulled her to her feet. He couldn’t let her gain any more ground into his private world. The closer she got to him, the greater the chance she’d uncover his secret. He collected his plate of kebabs and walked towards her on heavy feet. He had answers to find and the past to repair and only then would he be free to be the person he really was.

  Paige licked a finger as he took his seat in the camping chair beside her. ‘These kebabs are really, really good.’

  Of the two kebabs he’d given her, only one remained. ‘Someone was hungry.’ He picked up a kebab from off his own pile. ‘Here.’

  But she didn’t lift her plate, instead her head whipped around as she stared into the darkness to her right.

  He placed the kebab onto the plate on her lap. ‘Paige,’ he said softly, ‘it’s nothing.’

  ‘How do you know?’ she asked without turning her head. ‘I heard a noise.’

  ‘That’s because there’s a mob of kangaroos over there. I saw them when I was cooking.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ She slowly faced him.

  ‘Yes. Now eat up. Something tells me we’ll be in for a long night.’

  She looked at the extra kebab. ‘Thanks.’ But by the way she picked at the meat he knew her appetite had deserted her.

  She peered to her right again. ‘I wish we could have brought Dusty but he’s too old to take on a pack of feral dogs.’

  ‘I’m sure Miss Princess Polly will let us know if anything disturbs her beauty sleep.’

  ‘True.’

  Paige gazed into the fire and started her kebab. ‘So where did you learn campfire cooking?’

  He concentrated on chewing and not on Paige’s mouth as she again licked her fingers.

/>   ‘As I said on the day I arrived, I’m a good boy scout.’

  ‘Somehow I can’t really see you as a boy scout and following orders.’

  ‘True. I actually only lasted a few weeks. Let’s just say the scout leader and I didn’t see eye to eye.’

  Paige’s laughter was gentle. ‘So even as a child you liked getting your own way?’

  ‘I think the politically correct word my mother used was headstrong.’

  ‘You know, I’ve heard that word a few times myself.’

  He kept his expression straight. ‘I’ve no idea why.’

  ‘Neither do I.’ She giggled again.

  He reached across to take her empty plate. Firelight splashed over her fine-boned features and clung to the lustre of her smooth skin.

  ‘We might come from different worlds, but you and I, we’re not that much different.’ His gaze dropped to her lips that would taste of kebabs and the sweetness that was Paige Quinn. ‘But there are still enough differences to make life interesting.’

  A log cracked on the fire. The loud noise ricocheted in his head like a gunshot. What was he doing? He couldn’t kiss her again, no matter how much he yearned to close the distance between them. He jumped up. ‘Any room left for marshmallows?’ Even to his own ears his voice sounded husky.

  ‘I’ve always room left for marshmallows.’ She leaned over the side of her chair to pick up a lantern. She turned it on and a pool of light enveloped them. She set the lantern behind her in the ute, then stood and hobbled over to join him at the fire. The boot he’d cut the toe out of earlier was now paired with her usual work boot.

  He passed her a stick with two marshmallows stuck onto the end.

  She examined the white puffs. ‘Where on earth did you get these?’

  ‘Glenalla. I know my way around the grocery store now.’

  ‘I bet you do. Just like everyone there now would also know your name.’

  ‘They do. And don’t worry, they always ask after you too.’

  ‘Always?’

  ‘Well, Sarah does.’

  She grinned. ‘I bet the other very single checkout girl, Monique, wouldn’t ask after me.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I do mention you at least three times per conversation as any besotted internet-boyfriend would.’

  She groaned and lowered the marshmallows into the fire. ‘Just great. You know at the ball everyone will expect us to act like a couple?’

  ‘It’ll be fine. You worry too much. I’m sure we can be nice to each other for a few hours.’

  ‘Do you think we need to set some ground rules?’

  ‘Ground rules? We’re going to a ball not moving in together.’ He examined her cheeks, unsure if her high colour was the result of a blush or the heat of the fire.

  ‘Okay. But if you step out of line, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt you will.’

  Silence settled between them.

  ‘I don’t think I can remember when I last roasted marshmallows,’ she said. ‘I’d forgotten how much fun it is.’

  Tait jerked his marshmallows away from the flames as they incinerated. He’d been too busy watching memories play across Paige’s expressive face to watch what he was doing.

  She removed her own perfectly toasted treats and inspected the charred blobs stuck to the end of his stick. ‘I hope you like crispy-critters.’

  He tossed his burnt offerings into the fire and attached two fresh ones.

  ‘I think,’ he said, ‘I last had marshmallows when Bruce and I went camping in the Snowy Mountains to celebrate my eighteenth birthday.’

  ‘So that’s how you know how to cook over an open fire?’

  ‘Yes, Bruce taught me everything I know.’ Again Tait’s marshmallows caught alight. He pulled the smoking stick out of the fire and blew on the flames. ‘Except how to cook marshmallows.’

  ‘Have these, they’re done.’ She swapped sticks with him and flicked off the charred marshmallows. She then bent to pluck a pink and then a white puff from the packet on the ground. She winced as she straightened.

  ‘Do you need to sit?’ he asked, already half-turned towards the chairs next to the ute.

  ‘Thanks, but I’m good.’ Her face softened. ‘Thanks too for coming and keeping watch with me.’

  ‘No worries.’ This time the marshmallows on his stick fell into the ashes. He tossed his stick into the fire. ‘You can pay me in marshmallows because at this rate I’ll starve.’

  He ground his teeth. It wasn’t only his marshmallows that were going up in smoke. He couldn’t be around Paige for longer than five minutes and his concentration combusted. It was going to be a very long night.

  Paige stared at the glowing embers that sparked and crackled into fresh life before her. She followed the tendrils of smoke into the star-studded sky. With any luck the feral dogs would smell the smoke as the wallaby had done and give the holding paddock a wide berth. She looked over the cattle, now indistinct blobs except for occasional patches of white. She sneaked a glance at the silent man beside her who stared into the fire as though the answers to life’s mysteries were written in the flames. He may tell her to relax and not to worry but the rigid line of his shoulders reassured her he was as alert as she was. She hadn’t missed the way he kept a close eye on the cattle and made sure nothing blocked their path to the rifle. A warmth, and not from the fire, stole through her. Tait had the ready look of a man determined to protect what was his.

  The fire popped again. He didn’t blink or move. Firelight bathed his face and she risked a longer look at the etched planes and shadowy grooves. It was as though his stay at Banora Downs had stripped away layer upon city layer to reveal the real Tait who looked as though he belonged in the rugged outback as much as she did.

  He looked up.

  She scrambled for a conversation starter to break the dark seriousness of his eyes.

  ‘Did you and Bruce go camping much?’

  Tait again stared into the fire. ‘We did when I was younger. Sophia and Angelica aren’t exactly campers.’

  ‘How about your mother? Was she a camper too?’

  Tait nodded. ‘Mum loved getting out of the city. It was as though she reconnected with a part of herself whenever there was blue sky above her and space around her. When I was little she didn’t laugh much, but if we went to a park, or walked through a garden, that’s when she’d seem the happiest.’

  ‘It sounds as though your mother was more suited to the country than the city.’

  ‘You’re right, I think she was.’ Tait paused. ‘We used to talk about leaving the city but then she met Bruce and as his business interests are all Sydney-based, so we stayed.’

  ‘And went camping when you could.’

  A brief smile. ‘Exactly.’

  Wordless quiet again stretched between them. She interlocked her fingers and her restless thumbs tapped. Something about sitting with Tait beside a glowing fire knotted her insides and quickened her pulses. She had to cover her awareness that they were the only two people within cooee.

  ‘So how did your mother and Bruce meet?’

  ‘We were his boarders.’

  ‘Did he own a boarding house?’

  ‘No, just a big, empty, old home. Bruce doesn’t talk about his family or his past. Like Connor, he was a child migrant.’ Tait leaned back in his chair and placed his hands behind his head.

  ‘A child migrant from England?’

  ‘Yes, from London.’ Tait inspected the toes of his dusty boots as he crossed his ankles.

  ‘So where did he live when he came out here?’

  ‘Somerdale Farm.’

  Paige’s thumbs stopped tapping. ‘You’re kidding? That’s where Connor grew up.’

  Tait’s arms lowered as he turned to face her, an indefinable emotion in his eyes. ‘Where Connor grew up?’

  She nodded. ‘Dad would have been there in the early ’60s.’

  ‘Same as Bruce.’

  This time the silence that h
ung between them was heavy with unspoken thoughts.

  ‘It is a small world,’ she said slowly. ‘It’s not every day I meet someone who has a father who was a child migrant, let alone a father who lived at the same institution as mine. I wonder if they knew each other.’

  For a moment she believed Tait wasn’t going answer, and then he spoke, ‘I wonder too.’

  ‘Thanks for letting us know, Dennis, and yes, we’ll have that long overdue drink tonight.’

  Connor replaced the phone handset. Thankfully the feral dogs had turned up at a property south of Banora Downs. Like Paige, the farmer had been ready and waiting and the dogs wouldn’t be terrorizing any more stock. Connor headed towards the two-way in the kitchen. He’d interrupt Paige and Tait’s camp breakfast and tell them the good news. Much to Paige’s disgust, they’d be home with plenty of time to get ready for the ball.

  He ignored the tension that again tightened his chest like a tourniquet. Today was supposed to be a worry-free day. Tonight was all about celebrating life and lifting the community’s spirits. It didn’t matter they’d all wake tomorrow to another day of drought; tonight there’d be fun, laughter and friendship. He’d already called Anne to invite her to travel in with them, as well as to stay the night. The thought of her driving alone home to Glenalla from Balgarry had woken him early. The roos were particularly bad on that stretch of road.

  He glanced at the kitchen wall calendar as he passed. In two days Tait would leave. The window was closing both on Connor’s hopes for Paige as well as on Tait finding the information Connor guessed he’d come to the outback to discover. Tait had casually asked about a Three-M Pastoral Company but Connor hadn’t missed the tension bracketing his mouth. Unfortunately for Tait he’d never heard of the company, but maybe on Tait’s trips to Glenalla he’d been able to find someone who did? He must remember to ask Anne if she knew anything. She always seemed to know what was happening. He reached for the two-way, the unease refusing to leave him. The Balgarry get-together hadn’t brought with it any recognition of who Tait really was. But tonight at the ball would Tait’s luck run out?