by Jennie Adams
‘I’ve settled on providing each of the guests with a charm in either the form of a necklace or bracelet. The charms would each be individually crafted to represent some aspect of the tour, and they would offer good luck.’
‘Inspired by the haunted tour.’ Alex smiled. ‘That’s a good idea.’
Pleased that he liked her thoughts, Jayne smiled. ‘Can you find someone to create the charms for me?’ She corrected herself, ‘I mean for Cutter’s?’
‘Yes, I can. I have a costume jeweller working for me who’ll be ideal for the work.’
‘Thank you, Alex.’ His contacts were working out to be as good as Jayne had hoped they would be.
He glanced out of the window. ‘Won’t be long until we land.’ The plane started to slow.
Jayne’s fingers curled around the armrest of her seat and anticipation and a little worry for him all blended together inside her. Whatever he was about to find out about his past, they were almost there!
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE evening passed slowly for Jayne. She couldn’t stop thinking about Alex’s meeting. Was it going okay? Was he hearing good news? Or bad?
‘There you are. You’re back. I didn’t mean to hover in the hallway. I just stepped out for a moment.’ Jayne babbled the words and stopped abruptly. ‘Sorry. The last thing you probably need is me blabbing at you.’ She searched Alex’s face. ‘How…how did things go?’
‘It was a little intense.’ Alex felt drained. It had been a deep and at times frustrating few hours. He was still processing the meeting with several local elders.
‘I’ve got a suite with a separate sitting room,’ Jayne offered. ‘Would you like a coffee or a cold drink?’
He hesitated for a moment, but he could probably benefit from talking the meeting over a bit. It might help clarify his thoughts. ‘That’d be nice.’
They sat with a bottle of soft drink each and Alex started to sift through his thoughts. ‘None of the elders could place me.’
At least they’d met him, and they’d tried. ‘They all met me at once, so there’s no meeting now for tomorrow.’
‘And this one didn’t get as far as you’d hoped?’ Jayne’s hand closed over his where it rested on the table. ‘I’m sorry, Alex. Is there more that can be done?’
Her fingers were soft and gentle, and it made Alex feel like a big baby for wanting to…hold on.
‘I don’t know where to take it from here. I’m usually decisive.’ It would have been easy for Alex to want to bury his disappointment here, now, with Jayne. He wanted to—wanted her—and, because he already felt vulnerable, he got to his feet.
If his father’s identity remained a mystery to him, he’d deal with it. ‘I have an invitation from the elders to come back to Alice Springs and spend some time with them.’ Alex appreciated that and one day he would probably do it. He did want to understand his history and embrace cultural aspects of himself that he hadn’t done until now, even if he couldn’t pin it down to more than that.
As Jayne walked with him to the door of her sitting room, she glanced up with concern on her face.
‘Don’t worry about it.’ He touched her cheek, just once. It was all he would allow himself—one touch before he said goodnight, stepped out into the hallway and listened for her to lock the door behind him.
Alex had told Jayne not to worry but, truthfully, this had made him feel more restless inside than ever. He was…disappointed. He’d wanted to stay talking to Jayne, to soak up her concern for him. He’d wanted to kiss her again, and to…more than kiss her. Oh, he knew none of that would make any difference to his lack of answers from tonight’s meeting, but he’d wanted it anyway.
Alex wasn’t comfortable with the knowledge of that want. He couldn’t think right now about the right or wrong of trying to pursue this with Jayne. The attraction seemed to increase as they got to know each other but they’d also both said that pursuing it was not what they truly wanted. For that reason, he chose to leave.
To walk away instead of resolving it? To ignore it instead of dealing with it? As he’d been ignoring the fact that he had to discuss his search for answers with Brent and Linc? The thoughts brought a frown to his face.
‘The shadows that the clouds are casting on the rock as they move overhead almost look like spirits or something. Do you see the two faces? The hand holding a spear?’ Jayne whispered the words.
Alex stood at her side. They’d come to watch the sun rise over Uluru the next morning. The huge red rock was planted in the centre of this dry, dusty plain. All around them were wiry trees and scrubby bushes, barren red earth and ripples of dust. There was an air of stillness and waiting that seemed to come from deep within the earth, not just from the people around them who held their breaths as the sun broke over the landscape.
The catch of Jayne’s breath was audible. ‘This is beautiful. I almost feel as though I shouldn’t be here. That the sun should be allowed to rise and set undisturbed.’
‘It’s sacred ground. Maybe that’s what you’re feeling.’ Alex had felt the impact, too, the first time he’d come out here with his friend and colleague, Brendan. However you looked at it, Uluru was a place that commanded respect. He was glad Jayne had felt its strength.
Alex hadn’t known, during his other visit, that he had a history in this area. Now he did, though his information about it was limited and he wasn’t really sure what he wanted to do now about that heritage. He didn’t know what he’d wanted in the first place, when he’d received his mother’s letter.
Closure on something that he’d been forced to close many years ago because it had all been unanswerable at that time? Answers to feelings of abandonment and loss that were also unanswerable? Absolution for still feeling empty in a corner of himself, despite the care and love of Brent and Linc that should have filled any void?
‘Where does seeing this put you in relation to this tour?’ He’d rather ask this question of Jayne and ignore his own questions.
‘I don’t think this is something that the tour should capitalise on.’ As the sun finally climbed fully into the sky, Jayne turned to meet his gaze. ‘I know there’s a lot of touristy stuff out there that does exactly that, and I wouldn’t want to stop people from buying a photo or print of the rock or the area.’
‘But you don’t think it would be right for Cutter’s to try to profit from the magic,’ he suggested.
‘Exactly.’ Jayne searched his face before she started back to join their tour guide. ‘However, it’s an inspiring area and I hope we’ll come up with something we can use to represent it to the people who take this tour.’
It was a different tour group, Australians mostly, from cities or other parts of the country who had not been here before. For the main part, most people had been struck silent by the majesty and aura of this area.
Jayne and Alex walked a few more metres in silence. He appreciated that she wasn’t asking him further questions about his…research and situation here. Right now, he didn’t feel able to answer any of them.
As his gaze shifted ahead, a slow smile spread from the corners of his eyes to his mouth. ‘Look who’s here.’
Jayne followed Alex’s gaze to a man leaning against the side of a jeep. As she watched, the man straightened and tipped back the bushman’s hat on his head. White teeth flashed.
‘Is that Brendan?’ Alex had filled Jayne in on who Brendan was and what he may be able to tell him. She wanted—needed—to comfort Alex, to find his answers for him, but Jayne knew from her experience with her mother that it wasn’t necessarily that simple. Sometimes there were no answers, and sometimes the only comfort that could come was the passage of time. But if Alex could enjoy seeing his friend, that would be good.
‘Yup. That’s Brendan all right. Good of him to come out here.’ Alex walked forward. The men exchanged a hand grip and slapped each other’s backs.
‘Hope you don’t mind me coming out while you’re paying your respects to the rock?’ There was a hint of
teasing in Brendan’s gaze, but also shrewdness in his expression, and more understanding than there might have been.
How much had Alex told Brendan of the purpose of his trip here? Of his search?
Alex started to shrug, and then shook his head. ‘It moved me. It’s as if that rock knows things about me. Right now, that’s not a thought that sits all that well. I could do with some answers.’
Before Brendan could respond, Alex turned to Jayne. ‘Jayne, I’d like you to meet Brendan Carroll. Brendan, this is Jayne Cutter. You got my message about potential interest in your work, Brendan?’
Brendan had, and he dipped his head as he said so. ‘Got your message about last night’s meeting, too.’
‘Yeah. The outcome was disappointing. I appreciated everyone coming out for it, though.’ Alex shrugged, as though to allay that disappointment. ‘It’s good to see you. When I sent you that text last night I wasn’t sure if you’d have time to meet with us today.’
‘I made time.’ Brendan’s words were somehow blunt, his expression still searching before he turned to smile at Jayne. ‘It’s nice to meet you.’
Jayne exchanged greetings with the other man. For the second time since meeting Alex, Jayne then found herself looking at amazing original artworks from the back of a four-wheel drive. Brendan had brought twenty samples of artworks on rock with him. Not rock that shouldn’t be taken from this area, but rock, just the same.
‘My father owns cattle country north of here. I’m stockman and artist mixed into one.’ Brendan shrugged his shoulders. ‘We cleared a lot of the rocks from three sections a few years ago to put some effort into getting trees in. I painted the first few rocks for doorstops for the homestead. After that, people started asking for them.’
Jayne examined the piece of rock she held in her hand. Brendan had depicted the landscape of this area in reds and oranges, black, blues, greens and yellows. The colours were bright, bold and striking.
On this rock, he’d painted a scene around a tribal campfire with a didgeridoo player seated on a rock. The workmanship on something this size, and not a flat surface, was impressive.
Jayne handed the rock back to him. It was about the size of a closed fist, which meant not too large for people to slip into their luggage to take home. ‘It’s beautiful. What kind of paint do you use?’
Brendan gave a wry smile. ‘They’re painted in outdoor house paint, actually.’
‘So it’s durable.’
He nodded. ‘You couldn’t chip it off if you tried. And it’s fade resistant.’
‘Brendan, if I could offer you the right price, would you be interested in creating artworks like these for my family’s tour company to offer to its tourists?’
Alex’s friend was interested and they agreed to discuss it further next week.
Brendan turned to Alex then. ‘There’s a group of artists I met recently. Really good work. I’ve organised it so you can meet them this afternoon. They’re isolated. It’s a four-hour drive from here.’
‘Jeep hire?’ Alex asked the question with the first gleam in his eyes that Jayne had seen since they’d arrived the night before. ‘Bush tracks?’
‘Yeah. I can’t go with you. I’m climbing on to a plane myself today to go to Cairns, but the thing is—’ he seemed to hesitate before he went on ‘—one of the elders from Alice Springs phoned me this morning. She said you’d told her you knew me. Anyway, she thought maybe you should go out there. There’s one particular bloke she’d like you to meet.’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I’d be happy to go with you—’
‘But you have a plane to catch.’ Alex nodded. ‘No need to come along, but thanks for hand-delivering that message.’
‘It could lead to another dead end in your search.’
‘That’s okay.’ It was clear Alex had his hopes well under control.
Not so much that he wouldn’t go, Jayne decided, and rushed into speech. ‘We could give up the rest of today’s time on tour. We thought we were going to have to lose some of it, anyway.’ Jayne didn’t mind. Not if it might help Alex, even if only so he could enjoy a rough-terrain drive he could pit his skills against. ‘From the sounds of it, the tour programme won’t be anywhere near as interesting or exciting, anyway.’
She bit her lip as she realised how that had come out. ‘Well, I don’t mean to say that Cutter’s tours are boring. You know what I mean, Alex!’
Both men grinned and, instead of feeling embarrassed, Jayne was happy to see that smile back on Alex’s face. She pushed her advantage while she had it. ‘Thanks to Brendan, we already have the answer to the question of what would work ideally for the gifts for this tour. We don’t need to keep looking here.’
Jayne didn’t even notice she was saying ‘we’ all over the place.
Warmth filled Alex’s eyes. ‘Then I guess we’re going. Thanks, Jayne, for being willing to just do that.’
‘You can thank me when we’ve finished today’s trip without me volunteering to do any of the driving,’ Jayne said half teasingly, but she had to admit her limits. ‘I can drive a stick shift, but I’ve never driven a four-wheel drive and I don’t know the rules for outback dirt tracks and things.’
‘I can handle the driving. I’ll want area maps and I’ll have to get on the phone and sort out transportation and the survival gear that needs to go with us.’ Though Alex spoke the words to Brendan, he seemed to be thinking out loud.
The men put their heads together and sorted out how the trip would work and, after a strong hand grip and the request that Alex check in after his trip was done, Brendan said his goodbyes and headed away to get on with his day.
Jayne and Alex took the bus back to Alice Springs, where they would meet with a man who could hire them the right kind of vehicle and equipment. Alex wanted his arrangements in place to ensure Jayne would be safe.
That concern made Jayne half afraid, not because of Alex or the journey, but because she had a feeling there might be rather more reciprocal caring hidden inside her for this man than there should be. How could Jayne reconcile that, if indeed it was the case? Alex wasn’t part of her plans for now or for the future. Not her personal plans.
Where would Jayne end up if she entered into a relationship with Alex? Would he be the first step to her downfall? Would Jayne go from a ten-year age gap to a twenty-year one, and from there to something even greater? Would she become like her father, living for each new relationship and feeling completely insecure when all of those relationships failed?
Jayne already felt insecure enough at the thought of being ten years older than a man as gorgeous as Alex. If she gave in to this interest in him, allowed her emotions to reach for him, for need for him in that way to rule her, she would be completely vulnerable. She had to protect herself from the kind of hurt that could go with those feelings.
How would she hold his affection and attention, be good enough…? She hadn’t been able to do that with her own mother.
Alex had more important issues on his mind right now, anyway. Jayne wanted to support him as he worked his way through last night’s meeting and through today as well. She did want that, and that was something she could give him. She told herself her thoughts couldn’t be distracted in any other direction!
Alex was doing a great job of driving. Jayne drew a breath and really started to look around them. The scenery was unlike anything she had seen before. Sage-coloured spinifex dotted across flat plains. Blue sky towering overhead. Clouds banked in the distance behind them. Red dust rising in a plume behind the hired Land Rover.
‘Would you like to stop for a minute, Jayne?’ Alex drew the vehicle to a halt. He left the engine running and encouraged her to get out with him.
The moment she did, she experienced the stillness and the huge, uncompromising silence of the outback. She held her breath and finally turned to Alex. ‘I wouldn’t want to get lost out here.’
Yet somehow the sense of space made her feel rather lost, anyway. Lost, and awed by this crea
tion, and conscious that…Alex had been lost and someone, some where out here held the key for him to understand his past.
Brendan had wanted Alex to make this trip…
Jayne wanted it to bring answers for Alex. There were no answers for her—only the knowledge that it could do nothing but hurt, to trace a woman who wanted nothing of her daughters, her granddaughter, or the life she had lived before leaving Jayne’s father.
‘Thanks for stopping, Alex.’ Jayne let herself absorb their surroundings; let the peace push away those unhappy thoughts.
She wasn’t sure why they were so strong at the moment. Because Jayne was at a crossroads in her working life—a make or break point that could separate her from the work she did for and with her father?
When they got back into the Land Rover, they travelled in silence for a few minutes. Jayne let her gaze shift to the window. A wind had started to blow and the sky looked turbulent in the distance, dusty and brooding rather than just those few clouds that had been hovering. Jayne suppressed a sigh. She felt conflicted inside, between her business instincts and other instincts, between wanting Alex and feeling it was not safe to let that interest develop.
Alex had asked earlier if she minded that he was the middleman with any art arrangements with Brendan. Jayne wouldn’t dream of trying to cut Alex out of that; her business professionalism demanded it. But, when Alex had asked, the first thought in Jayne’s mind had been that they were partners, in this together. And that feeling felt far too right and covered too much ground within Jayne’s thoughts—ground that wasn’t only about work.
She missed Alex’s touch—his mouth on hers, his arms around her. They’d only kissed once and Jayne had told him that must not happen again and yet, without admitting it to herself, she had wished for it every moment since, whether she’d allowed herself to acknowledge that fact or not. And Alex had agreed it mustn’t happen again.
‘I think that’s it ahead.’ Alex gestured with a fingertip lifted from the steering wheel. A small cluster of buildings materialised out of the seemingly endless dirt track.
