by Nikki Logan
Towards the back of the pool, a granite overhang threw some welcome shade onto the rock shelf and provided protection from the sun blazing in the deep-blue sky. It felt three degrees cooler in the shade, so Reilly dropped their gear and his daughter there.
‘Will you watch Molly? I always walk the perimeter, just to be sure,’ Lea said, setting off around the waterhole. There was a shelf of rock right the way around, stretching back to the scrub that grew in the sandy earth bounding the rock. Nature’s pool-decking. Molly sat completely still on a nearby rock, obviously accustomed to this routine and knowing what her instructions were.
‘Have you ever found anything?’ Reilly asked when she returned.
‘It’s purely precautionary. The only things living in that water are marron and they’re much more interested in what settles on the bottom than what’s swimming in the top.’
‘But you still check for crocs?’
She looked at him. ‘With the early onset of the dry season, wouldn’t you?’
She had a point. Giant saltwater crocodiles surfed the high waterways further inland every year, but they got stranded here if the waters receded too early. They crept around between inland pools getting hotter and hungrier and more desperate until the rains returned and opened up their aquatic path back to the coast to feeding grounds.
Finally, she was done. Reilly watched her staring into the blue-green depths for a moment before recognising her delaying tactics. She didn’t want to be the first one to get her clothes off. Her reluctance was oddly sweet. He started to pull off his shirt, then stopped and frowned. He kept himself in good shape, and revealing his body to a woman was normally a cinch, but flashing his flesh to Lea seemed different now. Awkward.
Standing here fretting about it was stranger still. What was going on with him? It was ridiculous to be shy with a woman who knew every inch of him, biblically speaking.
Reilly tossed his hat onto their belongings and reached his arm over his head to yank his T-shirt over it defiantly. Lea turned away but slowly did the same, unbuttoning her everpresent denim shirt and peeling it back to reveal the swimsuit she wore underneath. He tried not to stare.
It was stupid to be disappointed with a one-piece, especially one that she filled out so admirably, but some deep, honest part of him had been holding out for a bikini so that her stomach was bared. He’d not noticed it under her usual farm-wear, but the changing shape of her belly was clearly visible in a swimsuit under the teal fabric. He ripped his fascinated eyes away, his heart pumping.
His child was in there. Safe. Warm. Loved.
That last thought had him frowning.
He’d changed into shorts back at the property so all he needed to do was kick off his shoes and he was good to go. Some ancient sense of chivalry told him he should get straight in. If there was danger to be faced, he should face it first. Wasn’t that what a chivalrous man would do? It wasn’t a quality he had a lot of experience with.
The water swallowed him like a living creature. The first five centimetres were comfortable enough but below it was frigid. The kind of cold straight from the guts of the earth. His breath hitched in, and other bits of him hitched up for survival. Not that there was anything to protect any more.
He shook the miserable thought off and stepped away from the rock shelf to the deeper water. As he did, he heard a hiss as Lea stepped into the water. The curse that followed was not particularly ladylike; he smiled.
Reilly let himself drift into the centre of the pool. It wasn’t enormous, but was so green and deep it could be harbouring Nessie herself. He thought his days of adrenaline rushes had died with his Suicide Ride career, but he had a little one now at the thought that he really had no idea what might be in the water with them. But Lea’s confidence was contagious. She knew what she was doing.
Molly stood patiently in the shade beside the water, all floated-up, waiting for her mum to swim over to her. The rock in Reilly’s gut threatened to pull him under. Without clothes, the poor kid was a pure stick with wasting, pale flesh. If Lea’s plan didn’t work…
She reached up from the pool and lifted Molly gently into the arctic water.
Childish squeals ricocheted through the rock gully and pierced at least one of Reilly’s eardrums. But then they subsided as Molly’s body warmed up until she too floated quietly, the sun heating her upper half as the water cooled her lower half. For long minutes he and Lea drifted around the pool in opposition, keeping a wide berth from each other. But slowly, subtly, Reilly let himself float closer. Made himself float closer.
For the first time ever, the silence was bothering him. He glanced at Molly and saw that her eyes had drifted shut. Her third nap already today, probably due to the hot, uncomfortable car ride.
He frowned. ‘Can I ask you something—in the spirit of getting to know each other?’
Lea’s smile was tight but resigned. She could hardly protest, given it was her line from earlier.
‘What made you want to raise a child alone, outside of a relationship?’
It was a risk, a huge risk; this could go two ways. He held his breath and hoped she’d answer. He wanted to put this question to rest. ‘You were young. Outnumbered twenty-to-one out here in the bush. You couldn’t find a husband?’
She swam on for a moment and he thought she might not answer, and then she rolled onto her back. The half-circle of rock surrounding the pond acted like natural amplification, meaning she didn’t even need to raise her voice to be heard. The soundwaves raced across the surface of the water to his ears. He drifted closer to Molly just in case she got in any trouble as she slept.
Lea watched him carefully across the glittering surface and glanced at her daughter. ‘I’m not looking for a husband.’
Present-tense noted. ‘You don’t like men?’ He knew that wasn’t true, she’d liked him a lot several years ago. Many times over. But it didn’t hurt to check.
Lea laughed, tight and low. ‘My formative impressions of husbands and fathers weren’t very positive.’
He nodded. ‘Your father. You told me in the motel he’d died recently.’
She watched him carefully across the glittering water. ‘Actually, his funeral was that morning.’
Reilly frowned. ‘What were you doing in a bar?’
Her smile was tight. ‘Celebrating.’
Right! If not for the pained shadow in her eyes he would have believed her. He remembered the agonised tears he’d interrupted in the motel bathroom when she’d thought she was alone. ‘He’s the reason you’re single?’
‘His example didn’t really fill me with confidence in the male of the species.’
Hmm. There was a discussion for another day…‘Hence your decision to go it alone.’
‘I’ve never regretted having Molly.’
There was something in her tone. ‘But you do have some regrets?’
She dropped her eyes briefly. Colour spiked up her jawline. ‘I regret the circumstances of her conception.’
Interesting. She’d already said she wouldn’t do it like that again.
‘Lying to me?’
‘It wasn’t a lie.’ True; technically it had been an omission. She met his eyes. ‘But I wasn’t honest, either. I was too caught up in what I needed to think about the ramifications. I’m sorry for that.’
He risked the question. ‘Do you regret choosing me?’
Caution blanketed her steady gaze. Her eyes sparkled with reflected sunlight. Every part of him wanted to swim in them. He held his breath.
‘I regret deceiving you.’
But not ‘choosing you’. She might as well have said it. The strangest glow spread inside him. He recognised it from the feeling in the hospital corridor when he’d just become a father.
He cleared his throat and looked at Molly drifting, dead to the world around the pool. ‘You never thought a father figure could be important to her some day? Even though it wasn’t important to you?’
Lea frowned, her hazel eyes
darkening. ‘A father is important. But a bad one does more damage than not having one at all. My children will have a mother who loves them, that’s what counts.’
Reilly’s gut tightened. Children—plural. Was she thinking of backing out of the contract? He sank under briefly to wet his drying hair and cool his response. When he surfaced, she regarded him closely, lifting her chin.
‘It’s the twenty-first century. Are you so shocked that a woman might want a child without the complication of a relationship?’
Reilly considered that for a moment. ‘Not shocked, just…I don’t understand how you could do it—manage it alone. Why you’d want to.’
A pretty stain crept up her jaw. ‘Curran women are highly resilient. We can do all kinds of difficult things when we need to.’ Reilly grunted. Lea stared at him through arctic eyes. ‘For a man who’s slept with half the district, you’re pretty quick to judge.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘For a woman who’s hoping I’ll keep my end of the stem-cell bargain, you’re pretty fast with the insults.’
Her controlled breathing caused her glistening cleavage to breach the surface of the water and then disappear again. In. Out. Now you see it, now you don’t. He dragged his eyes upwards as she spoke carefully.
‘Why would you want to back out? Having held your daughter.’
He met her worried gaze. ‘I’m not backing out, Lea. Molly’s come to mean—’ everything ‘—as much to me as she does to you.’
They fell to silence on that profound admission. Lea gave a dozing Molly a gentle shove to send her drifting closer to the pool’s edge. Her voice dropped to a murmur. ‘Can I ask you something—in the spirit of getting to know each other?’
He smiled.
‘The rumours say you slept with your nanny.’
Reilly’s brows dipped together. ‘I thought you were too much of a pariah to be in on town gossip.’
‘Just because no one talks to me doesn’t mean I don’t hear anything.’ She tipped her head to the left as though accessing memory banks. ‘Super-famous showbiz parents, dragged you around with them on the road for the first part of your life, until they noticed you were suffering.’
Reilly snorted. ‘Or my grades were…’
‘Then they left you on the homestead with School of the Air, a housekeeper and a nanny. You drove away every one until you were eighteen…’
‘Seventeen.’ He took a breath, fought candour with candour. ‘Technically they weren’t all nannies, the last two were tutors. Every time one left, Kevin and Adele automatically replaced them. I’m not even sure they knew how old I was towards the end there.’ He shook his head. ‘Who sends a seventeen-year-old boy a Swedish backpacker and doesn’t expect trouble?’
Lea’s jaw dropped. ‘The rumours are true?’
‘A Swedish backpacker, Lea? I was seventeen and learning to fit into my skin.’
‘She was an adult. Your tutor!’
He waved off her concern. ‘She was barely older than me, and she taught me Swedish. And a few other useful things. I taught her about the Kimberley.’
Both her hands went up. ‘Stop. My point was supposed to be that rumours hardly ever represent the truth.’
‘Oh. It’s the truth you want?’ Careful what you wish for. ‘My mother dragged me halfway around the country to show me off, not to keep the perfect family together. I was her prize creation, the poster-child country kid.’ He paddled slowly closer. ‘They taught me to line-dance from the moment I could walk, and forced me to learn the guitar while my fingers were still pudgy with baby fat. When she dumped me back home it was because I wasn’t doing so well in school with all the travelling, and that reflected on them. God forbid she should have a dumb son. Lucky I was good-looking, huh?’ His laugh was bitter. ‘The revolving door of nannies wasn’t about me, Lea. It was about how isolated those poor women felt, stuck out in the bush with a maladjusted kid, a surly housekeeper and two thousand head of steer for company.’
He stopped drifting, practically on top of her. The water should have bubbled where his body nearly touched the furnace that was hers. Every part of him remembered how every part of her had felt back then. This time he didn’t shut it off. He used his voice now as he had then, to hypnotise her, to get closer.
‘It took me a few weeks, but even I eventually realised it was the wrong thing to do. So I had Grita’s contract paid out and I channelled all that youthful exuberance into learning to ride the broncos.’ He was loath to break the spell he’d so successfully cast. He could kiss her right now and she’d let him. His lower lip throbbed at the thought. His eyes butterflied over her face. ‘So, there you go…Every rumour has a solid foundation in fact.’
Lea blinked, surprised to find herself so close to him. She back-paddled a little, but it seemed reluctant. ‘No, it doesn’t. I’m not…I haven’t…’ She frowned and stared at him in silence, a shadow flitting across her gaze. ‘If rumours are seeded in fact, then that means I really don’t fit well. I’ve spent years convincing myself it’s other people’s fault.’
He’d thought her as hard as the granite surrounding them. But her tough outer shell was taking some direct hits lately, and a soft, vulnerable woman hid inside. He was staring directly at her right now.
The problem was she was going to need that strength when the baby came. Even with the stem cells, Molly’s treatment was still no sure thing. His chest was band-tight and he decided to go there, pretty sure it would be a conversation-ender.
He dropped his voice. ‘What will you do if the treatment fails?’
Lea’s face lost some of its colour. She glanced at Molly, who’d woken and was happily singing to herself as she floated around out of earshot in her rubber ring, then back to him. Her eyes were bleak. ‘I think it’s time to get going.’
‘Lea, wait. I’m serious.’ His hand shot out to catch her upper arm, baked warm from the blazing sun. Her heat burned into his cool, wet fingers. He lowered his voice further so that Molly wouldn’t hear. ‘If the stem cells don’t work, what will you do?’
Her nostrils flared wildly. He could practically feel the distance she forced between them with her cold look as she whispered. ‘I’ll bury my daughter under one of Yurraji’s ghost gums.’
His stomach clenched. ‘And then what?’
How could eyes so full of pain also be so empty? ‘Are you worried I’d just keep walking out into the desert? Like I said, Curran women are resilient. I’ve buried plenty of people I loved. I’d survive.’
She pushed herself into movement and swam past him to the edge of the pool where Molly floated happily.
So finding him really was Lea’s last resort, Molly’s only chance. He finally believed her. His chest was so tight it hurt to spread his arms, to stroke over to the shallow part of the waterhole and haul himself out of the water. He ignored the sun’s warmth as it kissed his cold, damp skin.
He turned to share his thoughts, and then his stomach lurched up into his throat as his eyes dragged across the length of the pool. He raced to the edge of the rock shelf and reached down to where Molly floated blissfully. He yanked her out roughly with one hand under her shoulder. Molly immediately began screaming.
Lea spun around in the water, fire in her eyes. ‘What the…?’
‘Give me your hand, Lea.’ He had Molly’s non-existent weight slung under one arm and he stretched towards Lea with the other.
Her angry gaze raked over him hotly before meeting his own. ‘I can manage myself.’
‘Your hands, Lea. Now!’
Lea took one look at his face, stretched her hands up towards him and wrapped both hands around his wet one. He willed his body to have the strength, and then he pulled. Lifting up and out at the same time bit into his back muscles, but in just a few seconds her feet were on the red rock-shelf and he was hauling her back from the edge into his body.
She fought him the whole way. ‘Reilly, what the—?’
He forced her behind him and surrendered the wailing, w
heezing Molly to her mother, backing up further and ignoring Lea’s protests. Finally far enough from the water’s edge, he dragged mother and daughter around in front of him, keeping them within the protective arc of his arm and forcing Lea’s cool body back against his flaming one. He pointed over her shoulder to the far side of the pool in front of them.
‘What?’ she fairly yelled, struggling to be free. ‘What are you doing?’
‘There, Lea!’ He pointed a second finger after the first, his arms triangulating an exact location either side of her angry gaze. He wasn’t going to say it aloud, not with Molly already terrified.
And then she saw it. Her entire body stilled. A dirty smear from the scrub to the edge of the pool, like something large had crawled across there. But it hadn’t been there when she had done her perimeter check, and there was no water on the rock.
Which meant it was crawling into the pool and not out of it.
She half-turned in his arms but didn’t take her eyes off that spot. ‘Reilly…’
He let his arms wrap around them both for a heartbeat and then he was shoving them towards the four-wheel drive. Towards safety. It was all he could think about, getting them out. His pulse thundered painfully. ‘Get to the truck. I’ll get our stuff. Go straight there; go across the high rocks, stay back from the water’s edge.’
Lea complied immediately, which was a miracle in itself. As he saw her getting further from the pool, his body dropped some of its urgent tension and he started to notice other things. Things he was stupid not to have spotted before. Like the fact that the insects had all stopped chirping. The birds had all gone.
He kept his eye on the water as he dragged their belongings to the back of the rock wall and bundled them up into his trembling arms. No sign of the crocodile. But it was there, no question. Big, small; it didn’t matter. If it had come this far, it was either really hungry or really hot. Either way it was likely to be grumpy and not inclined to share.
