"What can I do?"
"Cook us some tucker. You do cook?"
"I have to eat, just like anyone else." Kelsey flattened herself against the sink and made room for Dillon to pass. She kept her gaze high, and he kept his hands on his towel. When he had gone, she stepped under the warm shower spray, but her sense of purpose was destroyed. She had never been more fully awake.
* * *
THERE WAS NO coffee anywhere in Dillon's house, so Kelsey cheerlessly drank steaming tea that was as black as an outback night. There was no jam for the toast, so she ate hers plain and tried not to watch Dillon spoon stewed tomatoes over his. Tolerance faded at coddled eggs, however. After she had cooked them to specification, his looked as if he should drink it in orange juice. She continued boiling hers until it was as resilient as a tennis ball.
Sitting across the table from Dillon was strangely intimate. His hair was still damp, curling around a face that was strong enough to endure its softening influence. He had left the top three buttons of his shirt undone, more like a man who'd lost his concentration in the midst of dressing than a man with something to prove. She surmised that much because the fourth button looked as if it were only half done. Kelsey's gaze drifted to it time and time again in fascination, waiting for it to pop open.
They conversed politely, although seconds later she had no idea what had been said. But she was acutely aware every time his gaze skimmed over her, every time he abruptly looked away, as if he were trying to train himself to ignore her.
She hadn't often sat in such casual intimacy with a man. In the past, when she'd thought about it, she had decided that she had the instincts of a nun. She, too, had devoted her life to other pursuits, eschewing the pleasures a man could bring. Now she wondered why. Had it been fear that a man might leave her as her father had? Had she grown so strong that she didn't need anyone else in her life? Or was she still frightened that she wasn't strong enough?
"Pass the salt, please."
Kelsey handed Dillon the salt shaker, and their hands collided. There was no jolt of electricity, only the feeling that the touch should have lasted longer.
She watched him salt his egg and eat it with the last bits of toast. He ate the way he did everything else, politely, but with a sense of purpose. She suspected that anyone who had ever been fooled by Dillon's good manners and gentle ways had learned quickly about the steel beneath them.
He finished quickly and stood. "If you'll take care of the dishes, I can get started on wiring the lock."
She nodded, still wrapped up in her thoughts.
"When I'm done, I'll take you into town. The mechanic rang while you were showering. Your father's ute should be ready this afternoon. I'd like to bring it back here if you think you can drive it."
"I've had some experience with trucks." She lifted her eyes and saw that he was watching her. His eyes flicked away and he turned to take his dishes to the sink. "With my father's truck available, I'll be able to get myself around. You won't have to worry about me."
"I don't want you out of my sight."
And she knew that if she wasn't out of his sight at least occasionally, they were going to end up somewhere neither of them belonged. "I can take care of myself." She softened her voice. "I'll be careful. And I'll let you know where I'm going."
He grunted, although not in assent. "I've got work to do."
Kelsey watched as he strode from the room. She had work to do, too. And the hardest work of all would be remembering that, in his own way, Dillon was as dangerous to her health as the man who might be stalking her.
To keep busy she spent the morning cleaning, her ear cocked for a telltale boom from the front porch. Dillon passed through the house several times, muttering to himself, but by lunch-time he seemed satisfied with the results of his labor. He took Kelsey outside for a lesson on opening the front door without losing her hand, a procedure that was surprisingly simple once she knew what she was doing. A neatly lettered sign beside the doorknob informed the unwary that entering the Ward dugout without permission could be fatal.
"And all your friends read English?" Kelsey asked. In the last few days she had learned that Coober Pedy was populated by the representatives of forty-eight countries. The town was a mini United Nations, without protocol or diplomatic immunity.
"My friends don't pick the lock on my door. That's the only way to trigger this."
Relieved that some friendly Ukrainian neighbor with a yen for a few minutes of gossip wouldn't be blown to bits, Kelsey followed Dillon back inside. They stopped in the kitchen. "I made soup," she told him. "And cheese sandwiches. I hope that's all right."
Dillon was struck by the domesticity of the moment. When had a woman last anticipated his needs and fixed him a meal? There had been a growing emptiness inside him for years, the emptiness of a man too long alone, the emptiness of a man who has lived on dreams and found that dreams alone can't nourish body or soul.
But what woman would come willingly to Coober Pedy to make her home? A starry-eyed romantic who was so much in love that she believed she could surmount the heat and flies, the dust and plodding sameness of the days? How long would the romance last? One year? Two?
"You don't like cheese?" Kelsey was surprised at the faraway expression on Dillon's face. Apparently she had triggered more than his appetite.
"I might like it too much." He didn't add that he might like her too much. It was fine to dream of an anonymous woman sharing his life. It wasn't fine to pretend that the woman could be Kelsey, whose purity of purpose and spirit was like a harlequin opal, simmering with flashes of brilliance and color, and lit by enough fire to keep a man warm for the rest of his days.
"That doesn't make sense," she said with a frown. "Did you want me to make something you didn't like?"
He smiled to reassure her. "Thank you for lunch. I didn't expect it."
His gratitude was a surprise. She felt absurdly shy, as if she wanted to retreat somewhere and examine this new sensitivity to see if it needed protection or the healing sunshine of more exposure.
"It's just lunch." She turned away from his smile. "I owe you that much."
"You don't owe me a thing."
"I feel like I do. And I always pay my debts."
He looked around the kitchen, noting the changes she had made. It was now as neat and orderly as her suitcase. "And do you keep track of them in a book somewhere to be sure you're always paid up?"
Put that way, it did sound ridiculous. "I suppose in a way I do," she said, half to herself. "But I was raised to. Every relative I lived with kept track of what I owed, not so much because they expected payment, but more just to keep me in line. I grew up thinking debts and credits were the only way people related to each other." She realized Dillon might misunderstand and think she was complaining. "It wasn't necessarily a bad thing," she added. "I learned not to lean on anyone."
"You could do with leaning a little."
She laughed humorlessly. "I've leaned on you repeatedly."
"And that embarrasses you?"
"Humiliates me."
"What if I told you I liked it?"
The husky sound of his voice made her turn to stare at him. "Then I'd say you were like men everywhere, Dillon. You want a woman in your debt. And that's just what I guard myself against."
"And if you're in my debt, just what am I going to demand for payment?" He moved up behind her back, not quite pinning her against the cabinets. His breath whispered through her hair. "Your soft, sweet body? Your hand in marriage? Your love?"
For one ridiculous moment none of those demands sounded half bad. Then she came to her senses. "I wouldn't put that past any man."
"And if you didn't want any of those things, you could just say no. What man would be fool enough to try and force a black belt into his bed?"
He had a way of taking apart her defenses and exposing their flaws. But there were things he didn't know. "Why do you think I am a black belt?"
Dillon put his han
ds on her shoulders and gently turned her to face him. "Do you want to tell me?"
She injected carelessness into her voice. "It's simple, really. I'm a black belt because I haven't always understood the way men think. You see, I grew up understanding debts and credits, I just didn't understand that when a man buys you a few dinners and says he loves you, he thinks that's his ticket to do anything he wants. He thinks you owe him your soft, sweet body." She watched his eyes begin to smolder. She wasn't sure who his anger was directed at, but she went on anyway.
"When I was eighteen, I learned that lesson the hard way. The man was big and strong. Innocent that I was, I believed him when he said we were stopping by his apartment to pick up something he'd forgotten. I might still be there if a neighbor hadn't heard my screams and called the police."
Dillon clenched his fists, but he kept his lips welded firmly together. There was nothing he could say that could help. He only wished he could get his hands around the neck of the bloody bastard who had abused her.
Kelsey cleared her throat. Funny, but after all these years, she still had to clear her throat when she told the story. "It took me a while to recover. Emotionally, that is. Luckily the police got there quickly enough that I didn't have more than a few bruises to show for the experience. But what spirit he left me was black and blue for months. Then one day I realized I had to do something. I was scared of my own shadow, and I'd turned into a recluse. I heard about a self-defense class at the Y, so I enrolled. It was a start, but not nearly enough to make me feel safe. The instructor had her own dojo, and I started regular karate classes a few weeks later. I lived and breathed it for years. I'd go straight to the dojo every day after work, and I'd work out and train until they shut the doors. I was quick and flexible, but strength came slowly. I moved up the ranks inch by inch until one day I realized I wasn't afraid anymore."
Dillon could have told Kelsey that wasn't true. She was afraid of men, perhaps not physically, but afraid to trust them. He knew, without being told outright, that Kelsey hadn't let a man get close to her since she had nearly been raped. And why would she? From what he knew of her life, every man in it had let her down.
"Not all men want to hurt you." He refrained from touching her. Instead he tried to let his voice breach the inches between them. "Some men are healers."
She lifted her chin. "Are they? Where do they hide?"
"You can't see them if you wear blinders."
Blinders of fear and anger. She knew what he meant. "The soup is getting cold," she said pointedly.
"I'll get the bowls."
Dillon leaned toward her, reaching above her head. His chest brushed the softness of her breasts, and his reaction was instantaneous. He heard the quick intake of Kelsey's breath, but she didn't move. He stretched closer until the bowls were in his hand. He wanted to stay that way forever, on the verge of something incredible without the realities of rejection and mutual pain. But no one could live forever on the edge. His eyes locked with hers, and he saw defiance veiling the very real needs of a passionate woman.
He stepped back. "Why don't you sit down? I'll get the soup."
"I'll get the sandwiches." Kelsey moved to the counter and gathered the platter and napkins.
Lunch was much like breakfast: polite conversation she couldn't remember seconds later and a constant simmering awareness of the man sitting across from her. Kelsey was relieved when the last sandwich had disappeared.
"If we leave now, we can fetch your father's ute and still have time to go down in the mine for a while. Does that suit you?" Dillon leaned back in his chair and finished the tea he had brewed himself.
"Suits me fine. I'll change my clothes and be back in a minute." Kelsey stood, relieved to leave the room. Dillon watched her go and told himself, that he'd better get used to her retreats. Their relationship would be made of them.
* * *
THEY MADE THE trip into town in silence. The garage was little more than a tin shack with dusty cars in laughably straight rows waiting for servicing. Dimitri, the mechanic, was a bearded Greek who regaled them with pleasantly accented tales of the town until Kelsey almost forgot why she and Dillon were there.
Jake's pickup—a term that Dillon informed her meant something much more suggestive than a truck in Australia—was as ageless as the outback and rustier and dustier than anything Kelsey had seen in Coober Pedy. A sane man would have sold it as scrap metal years before, but then, from everything Kelsey knew of her father, he was not a particularly sane man.
Surprisingly the truck started immediately when she got behind the wheel. Whether it was a last gasp or a new lease on life, she wasn't sure. But it sounded good enough to get her out to the Rainbow Fire. There was no window to roll down—she wasn't even sure windows had been invented when the pickup rolled off the assembly line—so Kelsey stuck her head out the opening and told Dillon she would follow him to the mine.
Halfway out of the rock and car strewn lot, the pickup stalled. Kelsey started it again and drove several feet before it stalled once more.
Dillon stopped and went around to the front. Without a word, he threw up the hood and disappeared behind it. In a moment the story-telling Greek was at his side. Kelsey waited in the dubious shade of the cab until the hood closed with a grinding shriek. Dimitri motioned to the space she had just left. "Pull in and we'll have another go at it."
"It just needs a quick adjustment," Dillon told her, coming around to the side. "Shouldn't take more than a few minutes."
"You go ahead, then." Kelsey watched refusal spread over his features. "Go on, Dillon," she insisted. "I'm safe enough in plain sight of Dimitri. I know my way out to the mine from here, but I'll listen patiently while you quiz me anyway."
Dillon debated. He wanted to explore the Rainbow Fire thoroughly for booby traps before Kelsey followed him down the shaft. This way he would have time to take precautions without making her a vulnerable target on the ground above him. He calculated the risks and decided she should wait while he went ahead. "I'll warn Dimitri about what's been going on. He can be trusted."
"I'll be along just as soon as I'm sure the truck will get me there."
Dillon nodded. Then, on an impulse, he reached through the window opening and brushed his thumb along her cheekbone. "You'll be careful, Sunset?"
Every time he called her by that absurd nickname, she got the most peculiar sensation. "I'm always careful," she said brusquely to cover her feelings. "I was careful before I met you, Dillon, and I'll be careful after I'm back in the States."
He wasn't hurt, because he saw the way her brown eyes had changed at his question. Outback desert after the first spring rains. Soft and full of promise. "When you get to the mine honk twice, and I'll be up in a flash. Don't leave the ute until you see me."
"Go on and stop worrying."
He smiled, and though he doubted she was aware of it, Kelsey smiled, too. He was gone in a moment.
* * *
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER Kelsey stood under the slight protection the hood offered from the rising wind, which was sweeping fine particles of dust through the yard. She listened to Dimitri's explanation of what was still wrong with the carburetor. She didn't understand trucks, but she did understand that another half hour would be needed to finish repairing this one. She didn't mind the wait, but she resigned herself to the probability that Dillon would come back to look for her.
"I think I'll wait at the Pizza Palace," Kelsey told Dimitri, shading her eyes against the wind. "If Dillon comes back, would you tell him where I am?"
Dimitri waved her on, his head under the hood once again.
By the time Kelsey emerged from the Pizza Palace after finalizing that night's dinner plans with Anna, the wind was stronger. There was a powder-fine haze of dust in the air that tinted everything with a rosy glow. This rosy glow wasn't synonymous with well-being, however. The dust coated her skin, seeping into her very pores as she made her way back to Dmitri’s.
Dimitri was inside, flat
on his back under a Holden station wagon when Kelsey found him.
"Everything's all fixed?" she questioned him.
He answered in Greek, following the long unintelligible explanation with an affirmative grunt. Kelsey thanked him, but just as she was climbing into the truck out in the lot, a goo-coated Dimitri caught up with her. "You'd best wait here or go home." He pulled a rag from his back pocket and wiped unsuccessfully at his oil-stained hands. "Dillon won't want you driving out to the Fifteen Mile Field in this." He gestured to the air around them. "Dust storm's sweeping in. Don't like the looks of it."
On cue, a strong gust of wind swept across the bare lot, spinning debris in its wake. The dust seemed to grow thicker as they talked. "We have dust storms in my country, too," Kelsey said nonchalantly. After all, she had read The Grapes of Wrath.
"Then you know to go home."
Kelsey shook her head. "Home" was Dillon's dugout with a lock on the door that might blow her hand off. Despite Dillon's assurances to the contrary, she wasn't taking any chances. "I'll be fine. I'll just go a little way, and then if it looks bad, I'll come back here. But if I don't show up, Dillon's going to worry."
Dimitri pulled at his beard, greasing it liberally as he did. "Dillon won't like it if I let you go."
Kelsey pulled herself up to her full height. "Let me go? You can't stop me from going, Dimitri."
He seemed surprised, as if that logic was beyond him. "You'll just go a little ways? You'll turn back?"
"Yes, Dimitri," she sing-songed.
He squinted at his watch, rubbed it against a clean place on his shirt pocket, then checked it again. "Three o'clock. I'll remember."
She smiled. "You do that." Turning back to the truck, she stepped up, slamming the door behind her.
Chapter 10
KELSEY SWORE SOFTLY at the potholes and ruts that jolted every part of her body until there was no longer a guarantee that her kneebone was connected to her thighbone. She had expected the poor condition of the roads, however. What she hadn't expected was that she might lose her sense of direction. She hadn't realized that the worst problem with outback roads was that there were no landmarks. One patch of scrubby mulga trees or clump of saltbush looked exactly like every other. Especially now that they were covered with a thickening cloud of dust.
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