Mariette And The Cowboy (Western Night Series 2)

by Rosie Harper

  “Hello?”She called out. She heard something shuffling around in a back room and a little old woman came out. Her white hair was fluffy and she wore glasses with a beaded chain attached to them around her neck. Kate smiled at her and gave an awkward wave. This must be the same woman she had spoken to over the phone.

  “Oh good morning, dear. Are you Katherine?”She asked, taking a seat at the desk up front and brushing crumbs from the pastry she had in her hand off her blouse. Kate smiled and nodded.

  “Yes, but you can call me Kate. I’m here to meet Mr. Johnston, has he arrived?”She asked, looking around again for the sign of another person. The older woman’s face blanched and she stood up from her seat instantly.

  “Oh dear, you didn’t get the message?”She asked, walking over to Kate with frantic little steps. Kate frowned and shook her head.

  “No, what message?”She asked. The woman’s face looked horrified and she glanced over Kate’s shoulder. Kate looked over her shoulder just as the door opened and a tall, broad shouldered man stepped in. His face was tanned from hours spent outside and his grey t-shirt looked worn, as if it had seen one too many adventures. He had a black, oilskin outback hat on and pulled down low over his face but she could still make out his wide grin and sharp, dark brown eyes. She turned all the way around and regarded him completely, noticing his long, chocolate brown hair was tied back at the base of his neck with a piece of twine and his cargo pants were as battered as his shirt.

  “Are you Mr. Johnston?”Kate asked, eyeing the roguish man up and down. He just raised an eyebrow at her and did the same. Kate suddenly felt very self-conscious with his piercing eyes taking her in and hoped she was dressed appropriately. She glanced down at her tan coloured denim pants, her dark green tank top and light pink button-up shirt. She even bought boots for the occasion and all the articles she had read advised against shorts in case she would be traversing in tall grass. She looked back up at him and he just smirked at her.

  “You’re late,”he said plainly. Kate squared her shoulders and gave him a disapproving look.

  “No, I was on time. You’re late,”she said stubbornly. he laughed and crossed his arms. He shook his head at her and Kate felt very small.

  “Sorry darlin’, you were supposed to meet me over at the store so we could get extra supplies.”Kate frowned at him and shook her head in confusion.

  “What? No, I was told you meet you here at precisely eight AM, and that’s exactly what I did. I received no alternate instructions,”she said. Lucas gave her a deadpanned look but when she didn’t falter from his gaze and held her ground, his gaze shifted to the little old woman standing behind her. Kate glanced back at the little old lady who had a flush to her cheeks and was looking around at anything but either of them.

  “Mrs. Peterman?”Lucas chided. The little old lady glanced at him and guiltily looked away.

  “I’m sorry! I thought I called her back but obviously I forgot. I’m so sorry dears, this old mind of mine doesn’t work like it used to,”she said apologetically. Lucas chuckled and waved her off.

  “Well, no harm done—other than being twenty minutes behind schedule. Let’s get going City Girl,”he said, turning and leaving the store. Kate frowned at the nickname he had bestowed upon her. She gave Mrs. Peterman a polite smile and followed Lucas out the door.

  “Good luck, dear! Remember his bark is just as bad as his bite!”The little old lady shouted after her. Kate glanced back over her shoulder but the little old lady had already disappeared into the back room. She strode over to where Lucas was leaning up against his Land Rover with his arms crossed over his muscular chest watching her.

  “Come on, City Girl. Hurry it up,”he chastised. Kate glared at him and jogged over to his car after she made a quick stop at hers to grab her backpack. She climbed into his car and sat quietly in the passenger seat while he got the engine started. She pulled out a notebook and pen from her backpack and began to look over it.

  “Alright, so I have a few specific spots I’d like to check out. Will it be possible to get over to Elcho Island?”She asked, looking over at him. Lucas chuckled and shook his head.

  “We can try but I wouldn’t recommend it. What places do you want to see?”He asked, snatching up her list and pinning it to the steering wheel so he could read it as he drove. Kate gripped the handle above her door as he swerved around a slower car in front of them and sped up while still reading her list. After a moment, he handed it back to her and looked at her curiously.

  “Why do you want to go to those places? They’re all pretty beat up after the cyclones and won’t be very pretty to photograph or whatever it is you’re doing,”he said snidely. Kate shoved her notebook back into her backpack and glared out the windshield. I can see why she was so hesitant to put me with him. No wonder he has a few complaints she thought to herself.

  “I don’t wantto go to these places, I have to. I’m a journalist and it is part of my assignment to report on the status of damage and repair in these areas that were hit particularly hard by the cyclone,”she explained. Lucas snorted and shook his head.

  “A reporter, I should have known,”he scoffed. Kate twisted in her seat and pinned him with a fierce glare. She had been nothing but polite to him from the moment they met and he’d been nothing but a jerk for no reason.

  “What the hell is your problem?”She asked harshly. Lucas’s brows shot up in surprise and he glanced over at her.

  “Myproblem? I’m not the one yelling.”He replied, maintaining the same flat, derisive tone that he’d used all morning. Kate huffed and shook her head.

  “No, you’re not, but you’ve been a jerk since the first moment you opened your mouth so, clearly, you have a problem with me. So what is it? I don’t have time for passive aggressive bullshit,”she said, leaning back in her chair. The car was silent for a moment and Kate began to worry whether or not she’d pushed too far. She was always told to assert herself when faced with someone who expressed doubt in her or her capabilities. It was a technique that particularly came in handy when she first started at the magazine. She was new to the profession and was surrounded by professionals with attitude problems and ego complexes. Well, if she could work her way up through the Daily Press without letting those people stop her, she certainly wasn’t about to let Mr. Johnston get the best of her. Just when the moment had stretched on long enough that fear started to fill the pit in her stomach a soft rumble started in his chest and erupted into laughter.

  Kate was so thrown off by the abruptness of the sound she didn’t know what to say. He was laughing? She was glad that she hadn’t offended him to the point of compromising her safety or her assignment, but laughter? He laughed long and hard until it was difficult for him to breathe. Kate just watched him, her eyes continuously glancing at the road.

  “What is so funny?”She asked, her tone still harsh yet newly confused. Lucas shook his head and kept his eyes on the road.

  “I’ll hand it to you, City, you’ve sure got a lot of spunk,”he said, his laughter dying down. Kate frowned and turned away from him in her seat. Spunk? I’ve got a lot more than spunk, buddy. Keep this up and you’ll see just how much more she growled in her head.

  They didn’t speak for a long while after that for which Kate was thankful. She sat quietly seething in her seat while he contentedly drove. After an hour, with the city behind them, she was starting to feel a little motion sick just staring out her window at the brush.

  “So, what do you have against reporters?”She asked, breaking the heavy silence. Lucas looked over at her and smirked.

  “They always think they know what’s going on and have it all figured out when they rarely do,”he said simply. Kate frowned and slumped in her seat. What does that mean?She wondered. She contemplated asking but figured he probably wouldn’t elaborate anyway, so she remained silent.

  “Did Mrs. Peterman tell you I was a photojournalist?”Kate ventured. Lucas chuckled and shook his head.

  “See, there
you go thinking you know what’s going on,”he said. Kate ground her teeth together and turned back to the window. It was a hypothesis based on the facts available, you jerkshe screamed internally. Lucas glanced over at her and could practically feel the waves of anger wafting off of her. He smiled to himself and turned back to the road. It wasn’t that he wanted to make her upset, but it was just too damn easy. People really needed to learn how to lighten up.

  “Most people I take out like to take pictures, either for scrapbooks, newspapers, or just for themselves. That’s why I asked,”he said, understanding why she assumed Mrs. Peterson had told him she had a different profession. He looked back over at Kate and noticed her give a little shrug in acknowledgement.

  “Mrs. Peterson didn’t say anything about you. All she did was scold me and tell me to be‘on my best behaviour,’”he mocked. Kate glanced over her shoulder at him and lifted an eyebrow as if to say“oh yeah?”Lucas’s smirk returned and he nodded.

  “Now I understand the warning. I assume you’re planning on including a review of the Darwin Local Private Tour Guides, yes?”He said. Kate pressed her lips together and nodded.“Ah, oh well. I hope you won’t take it out on poor Mrs. Peterman, she does what she can,”he said. Kate gave him an incredulous look and lifted her upper lip in a near snarl.

  “Mrs. Peterman? What about you? Are you doing‘what you can’?”She asked mockingly. Lucas shrugged and glanced over at her.

  “What does that mean?”She asked, mimicking his shrug by lifting her shoulders and letting them fall dramatically. Lucas smiled and repeated the gesture.

  “Just means I don’t have it all figured out,”he said. The car fell silent again.

  ***

  They pulled up to her first location and Kate climbed out of the Land Rover. She wandered around in the brush for a while, looking at the vacant landscape stretched out before them. She had wanted to start with uninhabited land first, so that she could see what it did to nature and how nature was working toward mending it. Many of the trees were still broken and there was debris along the coast that had washed up from other places the storm had ransacked. Lucas stood by the car and watched her wander around, jotting in her notebook, occasionally stopping to take a picture with her camera.

  “Do you know what this looked like before the cyclone, by any chance?”She asked, turning toward him. Lucas glanced around and nodded his head.

  “Yeah. It didn’t look like a cyclone had swept through it,”he said, turning back to her. Kate glared at him, unamused.

  “You know what I mean. What was different?”She asked. Lucas turned toward the tree line and pointed at the broken and missing limbs.

  “Those were normal. There wasn’t any debris along the coastline, and there were more animals,”he said. Kate pursed her lips and almost wanted to punch him in the face when something he said made her stop.

  “More animals?”She clarified. Lucas nodded and shrugged.

  “Yeah. There were always insects and creatures buzzing about. It had the noise you’d expect from an open land. This,”He said waving his arm around to indicate what was around them,“this is too quiet.”Kate nodded and made notes in her notebook. She’d have to do some additional research when she got back to her office (mud-free, she noted as she lifted one of her boots that was slowly sinking in the stuff) and see if other storms had had a similar effect on the wildlife and insects. If they had, then that was certainly an interesting side effect of the cyclone that nature was still trying to correct. She peeled her boots out of the mud again and began to head toward the trees for a closer inspection of them.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,”Lucas cautioned. Kate paused and turned back, freezing in her exact spot. She turned her wide eyes toward him and Lucas’ breath caught. Her bright blue eyes looked like the sky itself was reflected in them and her dark blonde hair fell in wisps around her heart-shaped face. She twisted and turned frantically, trying to spot an immediate danger.

  “What? Why?”She asked nervously. Lucas watched her for an amused moment and shook his head.

  “You’re just making it worse by doing that. There’s a ton of mud and you’ll get stuck in it and I don’t really feel like trying to dig you out.” Kate stopped twisting and glared at him.

  “You scared the crap out of me. You need to work on your phrasing. We need to establish a difference between:‘don’t do that there’s a giant spider that can kill you’and‘don’t do that it will cause an inconvenience,’”she said, stomping toward him. Lucas shrugged and climbed back into his truck.

  “Alright. Do you want me to use a different tone? Like I can get all high pitched for spider attack and keep it low for an inconvenience,”Lucas teased. Kate glared at him and crossed her arms over her chest as he began driving them forward again.

  “Or, I could shout one and not the other. Would that work?”He joked. Kate shook her head and remained silent, not wanting to encourage him. Not put-off by her behaviour, Lucas continued.

  “I could do different bird calls. Or what about a huge roar if there’s a deadly spider and a small cat if there’s not? Or—”

  “Or you could just say,‘hey, don’t move there’s a giant killed spider’,”Kate interrupted, finally at her limit with his jokes. Lucas grinned and nodded.

  “Or I could do that,”he conceded. Kate shook her head and looked out the window. After another hour, she realised that they were heading back toward the city. She glanced at the clock and noticed that there was still plenty of time to make it to their next location and back before dark.

  “Hey, what are you doing? We should go to the next place,”she said, sitting up and glancing around them. Lucas shook his head and continued to drive in the same direction.

  “There you go again, thinking you know what’s going on.” Kate made a growl of frustration and clenched her fists.

  “Stop saying that! Just explain yourself and stop being such a condescending dick!”She shouted. Lucas flinched at her sudden volume and slammed on the breaks. Kate held out her arms to brace herself against the suddenness of his stop and turned to him with wide, surprised eyes. His teasing smirk was gone and was replaces with a firm scowl and his eyes were so furious that they were like daggers. Well now I know where the line is, she thought, swallowing hard.

  “Don’t ever call me that. I’m just helping you out, sweetheart. Either trust the fact that I know what the hell I’m doing or get yourself another guide. If you know so freaking much, why don’t you just get out and go your own way. I won’t stop you,”he said, his tone sharp and firm. Kate’s heart sped up and she looked around fearfully. She turned back to him and straightened her spine. She wasn’t about to let him get the best of her.

  “Alright, fine,”she said, opening the door and hopping out.“I’m still paying you so you better come back and get me in three hours,”she demanded, slamming the door behind her. She hiked her backpack up onto her shoulders and stalked off down the road they had just come. She didn’t know how far it was to a village or her next location but she didn’t care. She’d walk for the next three hours if it meant she didn’t give him any satisfaction. Lucas watched her stomp off down the road and angrily took off back in the direction of the city, grumbling the entire way.

  “City girl and a reporter, that’s the worst combination. Thinks she knows everything and has absolutely no understanding of the outback,”he muttered to himself as he drove away.

  Kate turned back and watched the Land Rover get smaller and smaller on the horizon until she couldn’t see it anymore. She let out a heavy breath and her legs began to shake as the adrenaline wore off. She looked around her at the unfamiliar land and took a shaky breath in.

  “It’s okay. It’s just like hiking. Stay on the road and maybe you won’t find any of those deadly creatures,”she told herself, trying to push past the sense of dread filling her. She walked for about a mile in the opposite direction of where Lucas had disappeared and stopped. Nothing looked right and she didn’t even kn
ow what she was looking for any more. She felt tears start to prickle her eyes and she stared up at the darkening sky.

  “What the hell did I just do?”She asked aloud, receiving no answer except from the wind. She continued to walk, the humidity in the air beginning to weigh down on her. She took deep breaths, trying to suck the oxygen out of the moisture-infused air but was still finding it difficult to breathe. She wished she had brought a hat as the sun beat down on her and regret continued to fill her. She tried to focus on just putting one foot in front of the other as her body began to tire. She wasn’t sure how long it had been, or how far she’d walked, but she was ready to collapse under the oppressive heat. It hadn’t felt this bad earlier when they were at the first location, but as the hours wore on it just became worse and worse. Kate looked down at the dirt road and contemplated plopping down on it and just giving up until Lucas came back, but she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to get up if she did.

  Sighing, she continued to walk. She didn’t even know which direction she was headed in anymore. She tried to pay attention to the environment around her—taking some notes as she walked in an attempt to make this horrible circumstance productive. After a while, she gave up and finally dropped to her knees. She took off her backpack and pulled out her water bottle, guzzling the contents. Even though the air was so muggy it was almost solid, she was parched form the heat of the sun. You really need to work on that stubbornness. Maybe next time, acknowledge that the other person might have a point and let it go she advised herself. She leaned forward, resting her arms on her knees and waited.

  “How long have I been out here?”She wondered aloud. She had told Lucas to pick her up in three hours—which, who knew if he actually would. She groaned and dread filled her once more. She just pissed off her tour guide, had him leave her here in the open wilderness, and to top it off he was the only person who knew where she was.