Outback Cowboy

by Lexxie Couper

  “Introspective Emptiness.” Dylan supplied the title of her sculpture on permanent exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum. “Go check it out.”

  The cop’s moustache danced some more with his smile. “Think I will.” He touched the brim of his cap. “If you ever meet a Jilly Anne in Cobar, give her my regards. Robert Williamson.” A wistful expression flickered over his face. “She’ll remember me.”

  Dylan smiled. “I’m headed to Cobar once I’m back home. I’ll look her up and tell her you said g’day.”

  “The last I heard she’d bought a salon there.” The officer touched his cap again. “Thanks. Hope you enjoy the rest of your time in New York.”

  Dylan reached up and touched the brim of his own hat. “Cheers. If you’re ever in Australia, look up Farpoint Creek Cattle Station and give me a call.”

  The cop guffawed. “Will you throw a shrimp on the bar-bee?”

  Dylan laughed. “Farpoint’s too bloody far from the ocean for seafood, mate. But I do a mean lemon and lime grilled chicken.”

  With another laugh and a nodded farewell and Happy Thanksgiving wish to Monet, the officer left, directing the dissipating parade crowd off the road with a firm voice and two widespread arms.

  “Small bloody world, eh?” Dylan commented, turning his head to give Monet a grin.

  She narrowed her eyes. “So let’s just get this straight. You shoulder-barge a New York cop and then he’s your best friend? I’m beginning to think you’re a figment of my imagination, Dylan Sullivan. Something my mind cooked up after seeing Hugh Jackman on Leno one too many times. Or Chris Hemsworth. Or Russell Crowe.”

  Dylan tapped her on the nose, the edges of his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “Love, if I’m the best your imagination can do, as an artist, you’re in serious trouble.”

  Monet laughed. “God, I love you.”

  The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. However, it wasn’t what she’d said that made her belly twist and her cheeks fill with heat. It was how she’d said it. It was meant to be a silly, flippant throwaway line to express how much she enjoyed his sense of humor. Instead, it was a declaration, spoken with open, truthful affection. She heard it and, by the way his eyes darkened with unreadable tension, so did Dylan.

  “Dylan,” she began, her heart thumping way too fast and way too hard in her throat. “I didn’t mean—”

  “C’mon.” Dylan’s voice was a husky murmur. He gave a gentle nod to the left. “Let’s get back home. That leg of lamb in the fridge isn’t going to roast itself.”

  They walked back to Monet’s apartment in relaxed silence, their fingers threaded, their shoulders brushing together. Monet enjoyed every minute. And yet at the same time, the need not to fill the minutes with senseless, inane chatter only further emphasized what she knew she couldn’t deny anymore.

  She was in love with Dylan. She didn’t just like him. She wasn’t just attracted to him. She was in love with him.

  Five days and she was completely, irrevocably in love.

  Which left her pretty much up the proverbial creek without even a toothpick to use as the proverbial paddle.

  Dammit.

  Two blocks from her apartment, their fingers no longer threaded, their arms curled around each other’s backs, her head resting on his shoulder and the leaves of Central Park’s boundary trees falling around them like a gentle golden-red shower, her cell phone rang.

  She bit back a muttered curse, digging the annoying device from her handbag. “Hello?”

  “Ms. Carmichael?” an unfamiliar voice said on the other end. “This is Dimitri Gonano from Qantas Airlines. I’m calling to inform you that Mr. Sullivan’s luggage has been located. For your convenience, we’ve already dispatched delivery to…”

  The man may have said Monet’s address, but she really couldn’t hear him that well. Not when her blood was suddenly roaring in her ears and her pulse was thumping in her neck.

  Dylan’s luggage was found. Which meant he had no further reason to stay in New York after tonight.

  None at all.

  Chapter 8

  Dylan had never been so unsettled to see a man holding a duffel bag.

  He regarded the poised and polished concierge from beneath the brim of his hat, knowing he was supposed to step forward and retrieve his once-lost luggage from the man but finding it too bloody difficult to do so.

  Once he took the worn, frayed canvas handles it meant he couldn’t pretend anymore.

  Pretend what? That the only reason you weren’t heading back to Australia was a couple of pairs of old jeans, a few shirts and your toothbrush?

  “According to the Qantas representative,” the concierge said, holding out the beat-up old bag, “it went to New Delhi.” Dylan could see him flicking confused glances between him and Monet, as if wondering why no one was leaping to take the bag. “I suspect it’s been on quite an adventure, Mr. Sullivan.”

  The sound of his name finally broke the paralysis gripping Dylan. That and the increasing worry on the concierge’s face.

  Dylan gave himself a bloody good mental kick. It wasn’t the man’s fault the bag had turned up. Nor his fault Dylan had fallen in love with Monet.

  “Thanks, mate.” Dylan took the bag from the concierge’s hand with a wide smile. His pulse thumped hard in his neck. “Thought I was going to need to buy myself some more city threads.”

  Beside him, Monet laughed. To Dylan’s ears it sounded just as tight as his chest felt.

  She knows as well. It’s over. It’s time to head back to Kansas, or in your case, Farpoint.

  “Thanks, Franklin.” She handed the concierge some folded five-dollar notes—a tip, Dylan realized, a practice he was still trying to get the hang of. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

  They rode the lift in silence, except this wasn’t like the relaxed, comfortable quiet of their walk home. It was tense. Heavy. As if the duffel bag hanging on Dylan’s shoulder wasn’t packed with clothing but instead contained his denied wants and desire.

  He bit back a sigh. Struth, he’d never been so bloody melodramatic until he came to the States. His days used to be filled with unruly Black Angus, jackaroos, cold beer, good tucker, an argument or two with Hunter about who should be the next captain of the Australian cricket team and, if he was lucky, a shower that didn’t run cold before he finished rinsing off. Now his luggage had somehow become a metaphor for a miserable future without Monet, and the silence between them had become more suffocating than the dust storms that hit Farpoint during the dry seasons.

  The silence didn’t abate as they entered Monet’s apartment. He stood at the threshold, watching her walk into her home, so perfectly suited to the eclectic furniture and artwork around her. Here. Not in a farmhouse out whoop whoop, where the only sights outside the windows were the tenacious gum trees too stubborn to admit defeat to the scorching Australian sun. Where the only artwork was the giant termite mounds peppered around the cattle station.

  She stopped at the opening to her kitchen, casting him a look over her shoulder. Her gaze held his for a quick moment, and then she turned and continued into the small space. “I’ll get the leg of lamb out of the refrigerator for you,” she said as she moved to the fridge. “Do you want a glass of wine? A beer?”

  “Beer will be great,” he answered, his voice far more casual than he felt. “Ta.”

  She busied herself in the kitchen, and it was all Dylan could do to tear his stare from the beauty of her form.

  He crossed the threshold and walked to the sofa in the studio, dumping his duffel bag beside it before walking to the window. New York was beautiful. He couldn’t deny that. But it wasn’t home. What did he do about that?

  What did he want to do about it?

  Behind him, soft music began to play. Michael Bublé, singing about getting a fever.

  Dylan let out a soft snort. He knew the feeling all too well. The trouble was, he didn’t know if he would ever recover from his fever. He sure as hell didn’t want to.
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  Letting out a sigh, he shoved his hand into his pocket, closed his fingers around the cheap cell phone he’d purchased upon arriving in New York and withdrew it.

  Maybe Hunter had called? Fuck knows, he really needed to talk to his brother right now, if for no other reason than to ask him what to do about his feelings for Monet.

  Dylan smiled. Knowing Hunter, his twin would tell him to pull his bloody finger out and get back home. When it came to hard yakker on Farpoint Creek Station, Hunter much preferred to work up a sweat dealing with the bank managers and buyers, not the cattle and hired hands, and with Dylan being away for so long…

  The thought faded away as he stared at the phone’s small LCD display, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. One missed call. From a phone number he knew very well.

  Someone from Farpoint Creek Cattle Station had tried to call him four hours ago. He obviously hadn’t heard it over the noise of the parade.

  Keying in the buttons required to hear the message, he pressed the phone to his ear, his jaw tight.

  “Dylan,” his brother’s voice said. Serious. Strained. “It’s Hunter. Call me. We need to talk.”

  Behind Dylan, Bublé began crooning about it being a marvelous night for some sort of dance.

  The blood in Dylan’s veins ran hot. He’d been dodging calling home for the last twenty-four hours. It seemed, based on Hunter’s tone, the time had come to stop being a coward.

  And what if Hunter tells you Annie is waiting for you to come back? What if your brother tells you she’s expecting…something you can no longer give her? What do you do then?

  He ground his teeth, stared hard at the phone in his hand and dialed home.

  It connected on the first ring.

  “G’day.”

  Hunter’s voice was just as serious as it had been when he’d left the message.

  Dylan swallowed. “Hunter.”

  “Dylan.” His brother’s tone went from serious to…what? Casual? Too casual. Dylan frowned. Something wasn’t right. “How you goin’?”

  “I’m doin’ all right.” Ha. All right? Really? “Mum says you’ve been entertaining Annie for me.” He swallowed again, but the lump in his throat wouldn’t budge. “Well done, mate.”

  “Are you on your way home?”

  For a few long moments, Dylan didn’t have a clue how he was going to answer.

  Well? Are you?

  He stared at Central Park beyond the window. “No.”

  So there you go. You’re staying. Until your return flight, at least.

  Hunter didn’t answer for a second. “You still missing your luggage?”

  Once again, Dylan tried to clear the lump in his throat. “Uh, no. I got it today. Just thinking I might stay here a little longer.”

  “You’re going to stay in New York?” He could see his brother’s stunned expression all the way from the other side of the planet. Hear his shock through the scratchy phone connection. “I didn’t think you were interested in sightseeing. Thought you were just going to meet Annie.”

  To meet Annie. The words made him squeeze his eyes shut. “Yeah. I was, but I met Annie’s friend, Monet. She’s been putting me up, showing me around. Is, uh, Annie planning on coming back soon?”

  Say no. Please, brother, say no.

  “Didn’t Mum tell you?” Hunter’s voice again registered shock. And something else. Something Dylan could almost decipher. Tension? “Annie’s staying here for a couple weeks. She’s writing an article about the cattle station for her magazine.”

  Opening his eyes, Dylan gazed out the window. Bublé had moved on to singing about kissing a fool. It seemed, for Dylan, an appropriate song, given how stupid he felt. “Oh yeah,” he said to his brother. “Monet said she’d gotten an assignment. Didn’t think she’d still do it with me here.”

  “Dylan?” Monet’s voice rose above the music, and for a brief second his heart slammed up into his throat, joining the lump there. “Do you want me to—”

  He turned to look at her and wished like hell he hadn’t. She was too beautiful. Exquisite and elegant and exotic. And he was…

  The Down Under Wonder.

  “Sorry,” she said, and it was only then Dylan noticed she was holding a potato in one hand and a vegetable peeler in the other. “I didn’t realize you were on the phone.”

  He lowered the phone a little. “It’s Hunter.”

  She didn’t answer. Her teeth caught her bottom lip and she nodded.

  “Where are you?” Hunter’s question floated up from his shoulder.

  Dylan returned the phone to his ear. He felt stretched taut, like the barbed wire fencing he’d installed around his mum’s chicken coop to keep the dingoes out. “I’m at Monet’s. We’re about to start making Thanksgiving dinner. We just got home from a parade.”

  Home. There was that word again. How many times had he called Monet’s apartment home? And why did it sound so right every time? And so damn wrong?

  He gripped the small mobile phone tighter.

  You know why, Sullivan. When are you going to admit it?

  Drawing a deep breath, he met Monet’s eyes. “Give me a minute, Monnie. I’m going to take this call in the other room.”

  Monnie? What the fuck was that? Monnie?

  Monet, it seemed, was equally surprised by the nickname. She watched him walk to the bathroom, her eyebrows knotting in a frown he would have chuckled at any other time.

  Closing the door behind him, he sat on the lowered toilet seat lid and scrubbed at his face with his free hand. “I’m alone now.”

  “Dylan.” His brother’s voice was worried. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I just…” He dragged his palm over his jaw and stared at the tiles between his booted feet.

  It’s now or never, Sullivan.

  “Ah, fuck a bloody duck,” he blurted. “I’m just going to say it. Call me a dickhead all you like, but I think I’ve fallen arse over tit for Monet. I feel like shit, given that Annie flew all the way to—”

  “Jesus, Dylan.”

  “I know, man.” Dylan said before his brother could say anything else. “I fucked up. Big time.”

  “No.” Hunter’s voice was close to a ragged breath. “You didn’t. I think I’m already halfway in love with Annie.”

  Dylan’s heart stopped. Froze for a second in his chest and started again with a massive thump. “You are?”

  “And I’ve been feeling like a right prick for stealing your girl.”

  Halfway in love… Hunter’s halfway in love?

  Dylan burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. For the last five days he’d been fighting every bloody male urge and desire in his body and over on the other side of the world, his brother had been experiencing the same damn guilt.

  He shook his head and rolled his eyes. Being a twin sometimes sucked the big one. And sometimes it was just plain scary.

  “Damn,” he said into the phone. “Didn’t expect that. Sorta figured you’d chew my arse off and tell me to get my shit together and hop on the next plane.”

  “I think you should stay in New York,” Hunter answered, the earlier tension to his voice gone. “See what’s what with this new girl. Give it a chance. She could be your soul mate.”

  Dylan straightened on the toilet seat. “Is this the same brother who told me to get my head out of my arse? Told me flying to New York was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life?”

  “One and the same. You can kick my arse for being a self-righteous prick when you get home.”

  Dylan slumped forward again, elbows on his knees. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

  Home. That bloody word again.

  He sighed. “Deal.”

  A soft knock sounded on the door. “Dylan? I just wanted to…I mean…is everything okay?”

  Dylan raised his head and studied the closed bathroom door, imagining the woman waiting for him on the other side.

  Home. What a complicated bloody notion. His mum had al
ways said home was where the heart was, but what did it mean if his heart was in two places?

  His heart was with Monet. He couldn’t deny that anymore. But it was also at Farpoint Creek. Not with Annie—he knew that for a fact now. But with Farpoint. With the cattle station his great-great-great-grandfather had started. With the land and the endless Outback sky. With Australia.

  He rubbed at his eyes and then dragged his hand down his face. “I need to go,” he said. “Give Mum and Annie my love.”

  “Will do.”

  Dylan disconnected before Hunter could say another word. Knowing his brother, he’d ask him what he was planning to do.

  It was a question he had no answer for. Not a bloody one.

  * * * *

  Dylan closed his eyes, slumped backward in the armchair and groaned; a long, drawn-out sound that vibrated from his throat to the pit of his stomach.

  He’d never been so sated.

  “That,” came Monet’s voice from across the low coffee table, “was the most delicious meal I’ve ever eaten.”

  Dylan cocked open an eye, grinned at her and then closed it again. “Ta muchly. Mum was pretty adamant Hunter and I learn how to cook. Having said that, Hunter still burns water.”

  Monet’s answering laugh made his groin tighten. He’d never be immune to the effect her laugh had on his body.

  “You love your family a lot, don’t you?”

  He opened his eyes and gazed at Monet, doing his best to ignore just how bloody gorgeous she looked on the sofa opposite him, her long legs tucked under her backside, her dark hair in a loose ponytail, her smile warm and open. And yet, she looked…wistful.

  “You don’t love yours?”

  She shrugged. “I do. I guess. But we’re not close. I don’t have any brothers or sisters and no real sense of home. Mom and Dad didn’t exactly approve of me moving to New York to study art when I was a teenager, and I didn’t exactly approve of Mom and Dad dumping me with whomever they could when I was younger just so they could travel around the world. Hence me being here for Thanksgiving and not with them in Philadelphia. If they’re even there at the moment.”