Her Outback Rescuer

by Marion Lennox

  He looked great, she thought. He was in jeans and a white T-shirt, and the T-shirt was stretched a bit too tight. The sun was glinting on his hair. His bronzed skin fitted in with the landscape here as if he was a local, and he was stowing luggage as if he were readying for action.

  An outback warrior. She wasn’t staying with him. No way.

  ‘I’m not insisting on you staying with us,’ Maud said gently, as if reading her thoughts. ‘I know you like your independence. All I’m offering is a car ride instead of a bus. Your sister’s hip hurts, I know it does. And the little dog would be much happier. Rachel?’

  And, astonishingly, Rachel responded.

  ‘My hip does hurt,’ she told Amy, sounding apologetic. ‘It’d be lovely to go by car rather than bus.’

  And she flashed Amy a look that was almost speculative. Et tu, Brute? Amy thought. If Rachel started matchmaking, too...

  No. She was imagining things. This was sensible, for all of them. It was nothing to do with what was between Hugo and Amy.

  ‘Thank you,’ Amy said, trying to sound gracious instead of trapped. ‘That’ll be lovely.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Maudie said and beamed. ‘Hugo’s ordered food for the trip and he’s ordered for four. We knew you’d see sense. Now let Hugo put your gear into the car, then you, Amy, pop into the front beside Hugo, and Rachel and I will have a wee nap in the back.’

  ‘Maud...’ Hugo said warningly.

  ‘Yes, dear?’ She was all innocence.

  ‘You’re sitting up front with me,’ Hugo said. ‘Amy and Rachel are in the back. Quit it with the conniving. Neither Amy nor I are interested.’

  And Amy blushed.

  Up until now she’d never blushed in her life. She didn’t think she could.

  Her imagination wasn’t playing tricks. Maud was matchmaking. She definitely blushed.

  * * *

  They settled into the Mercedes and headed south for the five-hour drive to Uluru. The car was beautiful, a sleek Mercedes that ate the miles while they sat in comfort. Or slept in comfort. Maud napped and so did Rachel.

  Rachel had finally relaxed, Amy thought. This morning she’d seemed almost eager to have breakfast with Hugo and Maud, and amazingly she’d wanted to drive to Uluru with them. The Rachel of a week ago would have cringed and demanded the anonymity of a seat as far in the back of a bus as she could get. Somehow, Maud’s presence was making her relax, giving her something Amy hadn’t been able to provide.

  A grandma?

  Maybe that was it, Amy thought.

  Their parents had been... Well, parents probably didn’t describe the pair who’d produced Amy and Rachel. Dianne had been wild and passionate and what she’d been most passionate about was her freedom. She’d coupled briefly with a guitar-toting surfer. They’d travelled through Australia, had a couple of kids on the way, then tired of them. Amy and Rachel had been one and three when Dianne dumped them on her mother, and she’d never come back.

  It didn’t matter. They were happier and healthier with their grandma. Bess had raised them with all the love she knew how, and her death when Amy was twelve and Rachel was ten was a fierce, aching loss.

  When Dianne died of a drug overdose three years later the girls felt nothing, and heaven alone knew where their father was. When Bess died, when the girls were desperate for support, Social Services tried to contact him, but obviously fatherhood wasn’t his scene.

  They didn’t need anyone else, they’d told each other, but they’d ached for their Grandma Bess, for her stories, for her sense of family, and here, now, Rachel was relaxing in the company of another grandma. Maud made Rachel smile, and the sensation for Amy was indescribable. Someone was lifting a weight from her shoulders.

  But it wasn’t only Maud doing the lifting. She glanced at Hugo’s broad shoulders as he drove and, despite the sheer sexual awareness she was trying to ignore, she was aware of a wash of gratitude.

  How many grandsons would take this sort of journey with their grandmothers? How many men would care as he so obviously cared for Maud?

  He was a soldier. After this journey...would he be heading back to harm’s way?

  The thought was suddenly heavy. She thought of what she’d read about this man, about the empire he could now head. It was so big it’d run itself, she thought. Sir James and Dame Maud had always kept a personal interest but, with James’s death and Maud’s increasing age, the Thurston empire could become just another international conglomerate.

  But...the Thurston empire was worth more than that. It had a reputation for social justice but, for that to keep happening, Hugo would need to step in as head. His life would have to change.

  She watched the set of his shoulders and she thought that was what he was facing. Time to stop the soldiering and come home?

  Why not? Wasn’t it time he stopped with the nightmares? Whatever the nightmares were. She could only imagine.

  Whoa, this was so none of her business. She had no business wanting to hug this guy, to rid him of demons. Instead, she hugged Buster and concentrated on the scenery: vast red-dirt country, wild, untrammelled and wonderful.

  They were approaching a river—the Finke, the sign said, and she gazed at the riverbed in wonder.

  Apart from a few waterholes glistening in the afternoon sun, the river was dry, but it looked as if a great swathe of water had just rushed through, washing the sandy riverbed clean. There were rivulets, ripples and gashes in the sand, making the riverbed look like surreal modern art.

  It was weird and beautiful, and when Hugo slowed and parked she kept right on gazing.

  ‘It’s fantastic, isn’t it,’ Hugo said, not turning, speaking softly, and she knew it was to her alone. Maud and Rachel were deeply asleep. Maybe they should wake them—but for both of them sleep meant healing and there was no way they’d interfere.

  ‘It’s magic,’ Amy breathed. ‘Have you seen this before?’

  ‘My grandfather brought me here. You need to come just after the wet season to see it like this. It’s my favourite time.’

  They sat, he in the front, she in the back, and simply watched the great swathe of washed sand.

  An eagle came swooping from nowhere and swept along the vast length of riverbed, searching for his dinner or simply loving the arid beauty of the place.

  She was growing fanciful, Amy thought. They should keep going—they still had three hours’ driving ahead of them—but when Hugo said ‘Would you like to get out?’ she was out of the car almost before he’d finished saying it.

  She walked from the bridge to the riverbed, carrying Buster, and Hugo followed silently behind.

  He wasn’t a talker, she thought. He was a big, silent man who watched from the sidelines and took action when needed.

  He felt...

  She felt...

  She didn’t actually know how she felt. All she knew was that she was grateful for this moment, for being here now—and for the fact that he was here with her.

  She reached the washed sand and set Buster down. Buster sniffed, raised his head and looked along the pristine riverbed—and then something extraordinary happened.

  He sniffed the sand at his feet and then sniffed again. His ears pricked straight up and his tail went rigid behind him. He raised one paw and stood motionless, in the stance of the great hunting dogs of old.

  He was a frail fox terrier, with the adventures of his youth far behind him. He was a little bit lame. Barking at the camels on the train ha
d been about as exciting as life ever got for Buster; as exciting as he ever wanted it to get. For the last few years, when Amy took him to the park, his perambulations had become more and more sedate.

  Here, though... Here there were smells he didn’t recognise. Here were sights that stirred something deep inside, and they were stirred. One small domestic dog put his face into the wind, gave one ecstatic bark and then ran.

  He flew down the riverbed so fast, so far that Amy took fright and called after him, but he wasn’t out of control, he wasn’t leaving. Just as he reached the point where she might have panicked, he wheeled and came back to her, but not in a straight line. He raced in wide, wild loops, again and again, his small paws making crazy circles on the pristine sand.

  He had a gammy leg but he wasn’t noticing. He looked wild and free and happy, and Amy’s heart felt... felt... What?

  Hugo was standing beside her. She clutched his arm and held.

  These last two years had been awful. It had been Amy who’d introduced Rachel to the ghastly Ramón, but who’d have thought, who’d ever have known that behind the loving, charming smile lay a self-absorbed bully? Rachel had kept the darkness of her marriage secret, or she’d tried to, but Amy had seen her once-bubbly sister grow quieter and quieter. Then, when the smash came...

  Rachel had almost died and Ramón didn’t care. He’d twisted an ankle, torn a ligament. It threatened to derail his dancing, and the loss of his baby daughter was nothing in comparison.

  It was Amy who had to do the caring. It was Amy who had to walk away from her ballet.

  She’d had little choice. She could no longer dance near Ramón without wanting to commit murder, and her practice commitments left Rachel alone for far too long. She tried to be practical. Her body was wearying—she’d need to leave eventually—so she let Rachel think her trifling ills were worse than they were. But, as the months wore on, her sister’s bleakness had become a black hole that threatened to engulf them both.

  There were worse things to survive than ceasing dancing, she’d told herself over and over, and the job she was heading for in Darwin sounded lovely. But here, now...instead of a job that might cheer her in the future, she was nearing her grandmother’s birthplace, somewhere she and Rachel had dreamed of visiting for ever—and, what was even better, she had a dog practically doing cartwheels on the riverbed right now. The sun was on her face, her sister was happy and she was laughing and cheering—and Hugo’s arm came around her and held her, and she thought, right at this moment, this was heaven.

  ‘He hardly ever even puts his gammy leg down,’ she breathed. ‘Oh, Hugo... Oh, we might have gone on the bus. Oh, thank you.’

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ Hugo said in an odd voice and she glanced up at him and saw that he wasn’t watching her dog. He was watching her.

  ‘So the smuggling paid off?’ he asked, still in that odd voice. She should step back. She was way too close. Instead, she twisted in his hold so she was in his clasp, facing him, and his arms were around her waist.

  In the hold of lovers?

  No, she thought, feeling weirdly desperate. The hold of friends. This guy could be a friend.

  He already was.

  ‘Crime pays,’ she managed and he smiled and his smile took her breath away. To have such a man smile at her as Hugo was smiling at her, right here, right now...

  She wanted to do the odd cartwheel herself.

  Maybe...maybe...

  But then Buster came flying back, quivering in every inch of his body. He nosed her leg and Hugo laughed and released her and she felt an absurd sense of loss.

  No matter. He was a friend, she told herself fiercely. Men and women could be friends. They could.

  ‘Friends,’ Hugo said, and she glanced up at him sharply. Was he thinking the same as she was? He’d used the word almost as a defence.

  Great. If the two of them were feeling this tug...

  Not possible. He was an awesome guy. For him to think of her as anything but a friend...

  He was a friend. He’d just said so.

  ‘Accomplice in crime,’ she managed. ‘I go down, you go down.’

  ‘Thanks very much.’

  He grinned and her feeling of light returned. Buster started doing his crazy loop thing again and she couldn’t help herself.

  She stepped a little away from Hugo, put her hands down on the sun-warmed sand and did a cartwheel herself. And then another.

  She was wearing a light cotton T-shirt over her leggings. Travelling gear. Practice gear.

  She hadn’t danced for months. That last day, she’d gone into rehearsal and Ramón had been there, smug, arrogant, being charming to one of the new girls.

  She was tired and angry and she’d had enough. She’d walked out and hadn’t been back. She hadn’t danced since, but now, here, her body seemed to dance all on its own. The sun on her face, her dog, this place...

  Hugo.

  He was a friend, she thought, nothing more, and a friend wouldn’t mind if she went a little bit nuts. So she turned half a dozen cartwheels and then, as Buster barked hysterically, she spun and spun and spun until the world spun with her and nothing mattered except this moment and the sunshine and the desert and Hugo’s smile...

  And when she finally ceased, dizzy with happiness, he caught her and held her and he laughed as if he felt as free and as wonderful as she did. She heard clapping from the bank and looked up and Rachel and Maudie were cheering and clapping at them both.

  And Hugo still held her.

  He was a friend. With a friend like this...

  ‘Sandwiches,’ Maudie called from the bank. ‘I’m hungry. Is this intermission or curtain call?’

  Rachel was standing beside her. They were both grinning. Rachel stooped and called Buster. Buster did a couple more crazy loop-runs then stopped, looked about him, seemed to gather himself, remembered that he had a gammy leg and then limped bravely up the bank towards sandwiches.

  They all laughed.

  Hugo linked his hand in hers and they walked together back to the car and Amy felt...as if the sand under her feet was shifting and she didn’t have a clue what was underneath.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said, and she thought: I don’t actually know where I’m going.

  * * *

  He kept on driving. Beside him Maud chattered and gossiped and the two women in the back seat joined in, but Hugo wasn’t joining in.

  Why had he done...what he’d done?

  What had he done?

  He’d held hands with a woman as she’d walked up the riverbank. He’d laughed with her. He’d hugged her.

  Why wouldn’t he hug her? She was adorable.

  She was also out of bounds.

  He did not do relationships with vulnerable women who could be destroyed in his world. Who would be destroyed in his world.

  What was his world? Back on the battlefields of Afghanistan, or taking his grandfather’s place as head of Thurston Holdings?

  What he was doing overseas now was crucial. He was training the locals to fight their own battles, to keep the peace.

  It could be done by others. Heading Thurston Holdings, though...running the company as his grandfather had expected it to be run... Who could that be done by?

  No one but him.

  His conscience told him there was no way out, but what it entailed... The guy taking photographs back there on the train was the tip of the iceberg. He did not want to live under the glar
e of media scrutiny.

  He might not have a choice—but he was not going to haul a woman into it as well.

  A woman like Amy?

  She looked...fragile, he thought. Neat and compact and small.

  He thought suddenly of a lovely old music box of his grandmother’s. When she lifted the lid, a tiny, fragile dancer whirled to gentle music, and she’d let him play with it as a child.

  ‘Close the lid gently,’ his grandmother always said. ‘You don’t want to hurt her.’

  Amy was a ballerina. She had nothing to do with soldiering. She’d never been faced with an aggressive and intrusive media.

  He glanced in the rear view mirror and watched her. She was laughing at something Maud said. He should have been listening.

  He very carefully hadn’t been listening. In dangerous situations don’t allow yourself to become emotionally involved. No matter what the urge, resist until the area’s safe.

  Amy was laughing.

  The area wasn’t safe. This was a minefield and he was walking right through it.

  Close the lid of the music box and walk away.

  * * *

  The moment they reached the hostel Amy and Rachel had booked, Amy knew she was in trouble.

  There was nothing wrong with the place. It looked clean, welcoming and fun—only that was the problem. Fun. The moment they arrived, scores of young men and women surrounded their car.

  ‘Welcome!’ someone called. ‘You’re just in time for the barbecue. Did you bring booze?’

  ‘First drink’s on us,’ someone else yelled. ‘But, seeing you have a car... We’re in danger of running dry. Take pity on us, please.’

  There were cheers and laughter and entreaties in a dozen different accents.

  Uh oh.

  If I was nineteen and not responsible for a recovering Rachel and a hidden dog I might look at this place with delight, Amy thought. But, as it was...