His Outback Temptation (Pickle Creek)

by Annie Seaton

  Dad should have come with them. It had hurt so much when Mum had made the decision to go, and Dad had stubbornly folded his arms and refused to budge. She passed the museum and opened the gate that led to the path that ran along the river and back to the shop.

  She had thought that her dad hadn’t loved her enough to come with them.

  That had stayed with her for a long time until she just forgot about it by immersing herself in work.

  Her logical mind told her it wasn’t her fault. The problem was between Mum and Dad, but the risk of failing them as a daughter, and thinking that she was somehow to blame for their separation, had been exacerbated by adolescent emotion and imagination.

  So am I a failure as a daughter? Staying here with Dad wouldn’t fix anything. Isabella had vowed to work even harder to make up for it and make a success of her career. She’d set the goal as soon as she’d qualified, and she’d worked her butt off to get there for the past eight years.

  Failure was a word that could be banished by hard work.

  And she’d been successful. And she would be even more successful in the new restaurant. Another promotion, another step up the ladder. One day, she would have her own place.

  Only thing was she didn’t know where it would be. She smiled to herself. One thing was certain; it wouldn’t be in the Outback of Australia. As she turned away from the river and headed back to the alleyway at the side of the milk bar, she brushed away the single tear that escaped before she banished the hurt back down where it belonged.

  Coming home to see Dad had not been a smart move.

  …

  As Sebastian parked the motorbike outside the milk bar, the security light came on in the narrow alley outside the door of the apartment. Isabella was walking in from the river side of the alley. Her mobile must be switched off, so he’d decided to come into town and see her. He jumped off, unclipping his helmet, and hurried across the footpath, calling her before she disappeared through the door.

  “Isabella,’” he called again as he got closer to the door. She looked up and even in the dim light, he could see the smile on her face was wide.

  Phew. He’d been worried that she might think he was being a nuisance. He’d thought long and hard about coming into town. He had no reason to, apart from seeing Isabella. It was only because it was so quiet and lonely at the farm. Liam had gone back to his own house not long after the three girls had left. Sebastian had decided not to go in for afternoon tea. It had been wedding planning time, and he would’ve just been in the way. Besides, Liam had left a list of jobs and he’d not got through them all. By the time he’d fixed the gate in the side fence over near the calf paddock, red dust had hung in the air over the driveway and he’d cursed himself. Isabella had left and he hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye.

  He’d stood at the chest freezer in Gran’s laundry for a couple of minutes, pulled out a plastic container labeled curried chicken, and thawed it in the microwave. He’d flicked the news on while he ate, but it hadn’t held his interest. Then he’d even stood at the fridge and thought about a beer, but he hadn’t really felt like one, after all.

  Somehow, Sebastian found himself on his bike and halfway to town, his camera safely in the pannier before he’d thought it through.

  “Sebastian?” Isabella walked toward him, pulling a light cardigan around her shoulders. The chill air had descended as soon as the sun had gone down. “What are you doing in town?”

  “I’ve got some news,” he said. “And maybe another job for you if you’re interested. I tried to call but your phone went straight to voicemail.”

  “The battery’s flat. I put it onto charge when I came home from the farm, and I forgot about it.”

  “Had dinner?”

  “Yep. I’ve been out for a walk,” she replied.

  “Want to come for a ride? I’ve got some places I need to see.”

  “Really? At night?” Isabella did up a couple of buttons of her cardigan.

  He laughed. “Did that sound like a pickup line?”

  He was relieved when she laughed back with him. He really didn’t know her well enough yet to read her body language, but she’d seemed a little bit preoccupied as she’d walked towards him.

  “I guess it’s more original than come up and see my etchings, but yes, I’d love to come for a ride.”

  He grinned as relief filled him. “Hey, I usually say ‘come up and see my photographs.’ Works like a treat every time.”

  “Original. Wait here. I’ll just run up and put some jeans on and tell Dad I’m going out.” Her laugh was soft. “If you come up, we’ll never get away.”

  As Sebastian waited, he pulled his camera out of the pannier. The moon was low in the sky, and the soft light illuminating the tired facades of the stores was perfect.

  Click, click. He’d adjust the raw images to sepia; that would capture the forlorn deserted atmosphere perfectly. It was great to have his camera in hand again. By the time he’d taken a couple of dozen more shots and put the camera away, Isabella was standing on the footpath beside him, pulling on a leather jacket. Putting the camera down, Sebastian lifted the spare helmet and passed it to her.

  “Can you take photos when it’s this dark? Without a flash?”

  He nodded. “Sure can. Special night lens.”

  “I don’t know anything about cameras. My limit is the camera on my phone.” She climbed on the bike behind him, and he smiled as her hands grasped his waist. A ripple of pleasure ran down his back and settled warmly in his gut as he started the bike and it let out a muted roar.

  “We’re even then. I don’t know anything about cooking.”

  “Where are we off to?”

  “A surprise.”

  Half an hour west of town was an old cattle property that Liam had said was abandoned. A long railway bridge crossed the river about a kilometre past the derelict house, and Sebastian had it in mind for one of the calendar shots. As he’d worked today, he’d thought of the places locally where he didn’t have to travel far to get good night shots, but he knew he’d have to go farther afield to get a suitable portfolio of day photographs together. It was going to have to be on the weekends since there was a lot of work to do on the property. A lot more than he’d ever imagined. He couldn’t leave Liam to it through the week. It wouldn’t be the right thing to do, and he could just imagine the look—and the comment—he’d get if he said he was taking the day off to take some photos.

  Talking to Liam this morning had been an eye-opener. The wheat harvest was coming up, Liam had increased the herd size, and there was a lot of cattle work ahead before summer came.

  “I’m pleased you came home when you did. I would have had to hire another couple of blokes,” he’d said as they stopped for smoko this morning. “Now that the place is ours, I think with you being here, and having a couple of extra hands when it gets busy, we can make Prickle Creek one of the showcase farms in the district.”

  Sebastian had been surprised, but he’d not commented. The time would come when he and Liam had to align their visions of what the farm meant to each of them. Sebastian was happy to go along as Pop always had, running the place as a going concern, but not as a showcase farm.

  But that’s Liam for you. He’d always been a high achiever and wanted to be the best of everything he took on. And that was where a lot of the comments about Sebastian being the “lucky one” had been rooted. To give him credit, Liam had worked hard for his success in the newspaper world, and it looked like he was about to apply the same work philosophy to the farm. Although Liam had to remember it was a jointly owned family business now.

  He’d give it a few weeks, get the wedding out of the way, and then before Gran and Pop headed off again, they’d have a meeting.

  A shareholders’ meeting. If Liam wanted the farm to be a showcase business, they’d have to put the family ties aside and treat it as a company. Sebastian had a feeling that there was going to be some conflict ahead. He wanted the farm to be a succ
ess as much as Liam did, but not at the cost of his time to pursue his photography on weekends. No matter what Liam declared, Sebastian had no intention of working seven days a week.

  He indicated to turn right just before the Come-by-Chance turnoff, headed down the bumpy dirt road, past the deserted Paterson farm and along to the clearing by the river. Isabella put her head closer to his as they passed a couple of signs, but they’d flashed past before he’d been able to read them. The farmhouse was in darkness and it looked abandoned. Rusted machinery littered the paddock by the house, and the grass was long and unkempt. The front gate hung crookedly from a dilapidated fence.

  Absolutely perfect!

  Everywhere he looked, there was a photographic subject, and his certainty that this Outback series was going to be spectacular increased every time he looked around.

  A kilometre down the road he pulled the bike up and lifted his visor with a satisfied grunt. The light was bloody perfect. He climbed off, helped Isabella off, and opened the pannier.

  “Bear with me for a second.” Pulling the lens cap off, he shoved it in his pocket and switched the camera on before he ran through the long grass to the edge of the river. Giving a fleeting thought to snakes—no, it was too early in the season—he lay on his stomach in the grass. The moon was positioned perfectly behind the branches of an old white ghost gum and in the foreground were the ruins of an old shed. The shutter clicked as he turned the camera from side to side, and it was only a minute or so later that a drift of cloud obscured the moon.

  Just got it in time.

  He pushed himself to his feet, and the dry leaves rustled as he walked back to the bike. Isabella had wandered to a stand of weeping willows, and she was staring out across the narrow channel of water. He couldn’t help himself; he lifted the camera and clicked. It would be a nice shot to have as a memory when she left.

  Sebastian frowned. The thought of her leaving didn’t sit well with him. In less than a week, he’d really gotten used to Isabella being here and being such a part of the place. It wasn’t as though they’d been friends at school, but he liked being around her.

  “Sorry about that. I knew the light wouldn’t last.” He walked over to stand beside her.

  With a smile, she turned to face him. “No problem. I simply appreciate being out here. It’s a beautiful night.”

  “Is everything okay?” He hesitated before he continued. “You seem a bit preoccupied. You’re not having second thoughts about the wedding after talking to the girls, are you?”

  “Oh no. I’m really excited about that.” She reached up and pushed her curls away from her face. “Just family stuff. Dad’s being painful. Carrying on about me staying here. I should have been prepared for it. I’d forgotten what he’s like.”

  “What would you do here? I mean what does he think you’d do here?”

  She looked at him for a moment before she answered, and it was hard to read her expression. “Get married and have babies, probably.”

  “He’s a bit old school?”

  “Yep, that and lonely. He should go home.”

  “Home?”

  “To Italy, but he’s so damn stubborn, he won’t give in to common sense. Unless Dad thinks it’s his idea, accepting anyone else’s idea is a weakness to him, and he won’t even discuss it.”

  “It’s a generational trait, I think.” Sebastian held out his hand. “Come on, we’ll walk along the river for a while, and I’ll let you in on one of my deep, dark secrets.”

  “Ooh, sounds intriguing.” Isabella curled her fingers around his.

  “I’ve got a couple of things to tell you, actually.” Sebastian adjusted the camera strap around his neck so he could walk closer to her.

  “Good or bad?”

  “I’ll tell you my secret first.” His voice held a smile.

  “Is it the good or the bad thing?” she asked.

  “I’m twenty-six years old and would you believe my grandmother still has the ability to scare me? I’m dreading my grandparents coming home.” Sebastian stopped walking and sighed as he looked out over the river. Tiny splashes rippled the water in the moonlight and he had his camera up and focused without even being aware he’d dropped Isabella’s hand. “I don’t want to sound like a whinger, but my family has this thing about me being lucky. It was even my nickname for a while before I lost my cool a few years back.”

  “Why lucky?” Isabella leaned against the trunk of a tree that was between them and the water.

  “They reckon everything I touch goes my way, and things fall in my lap. I know I’m laid-back, but they don’t need me carrying on about how hard I’ve worked to get where I am. So they just see it as ‘oh lucky, Seb, he’s fallen on his feet again.’”

  “Having a work ethic and telling everyone how hard you work are two different things. Dad’s a bit the same with me,” she said softly. “Not so much doubting that I work hard but understanding that I need to. He can’t see why I have to work so hard to get where I want to be.”

  “Why do you?” Sebastian wondered if he’d got too personal when she didn’t answer for a while.

  “I guess it’s because I’m scared of failing. Lots of deep-seated family reasons there, but I won’t go into them. Just rest assured that I totally understand what you’re saying about family.”

  “I guess I sound like a real whiner, but—”

  “No, not at all. I appreciate that you trust me enough to tell me how you feel.”

  “Ditto.”

  “Okay, that’s the deep and meaningful ticked off for the night. Now let me tell you why I wanted to come out here tonight. I have a proposition for you.”

  “Ooh, is my reputation about to be compromised?” Isabella looked around. “I guess there’s no one here to see, anyway.”

  Chapter Nine

  Isabella wished she’d had Sebastian’s camera in her hand to capture the priceless look on his face. The light was brighter now that the moon had risen higher, and even though his face was all planes and shadows and angles, his mouth dropped open and his eyes widened. Isabella had made that provocative statement on purpose; the conversation had been way too intense.

  She giggled. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to jump your bones in the middle of a paddock. And besides, I’ll have you know, that when I did jump on you at the airport, that was way out of character. I’m really very quiet and shy.”

  “I don’t believe that,” he said, but he laughed, too. “Bella, you can jump my bones whenever you want.”

  The diminutive of her name sounded sweet in his deep and sexy voice but she demurred. “Not usually until after the second date,” she said with a grin. “And so far, we’ve only had one.” She tipped her head to the side. “And that probably doesn’t count because your family was there.”

  “Okay, so tell me what counts as a date so I know how to be prepared.” A devilish light glinted in his eyes as he smiled.

  She put a finger to her lips and pretended to be serious, enjoying the banter between them. “Hmm, let me see. Roses, definitely roses. Lots of roses. And definitely champagne. A huge bottle. Oh and candles are a must.”

  He shook his head, and his deep laugh rang out through the still night. “Okay, so I guess the dinner at the RSL doesn’t even count as a date.”

  “No, I guess it wasn’t.”

  “So the pressure’s on.” His laugh was wicked but enticing. “I’ll have to start from scratch.”

  His laugh kept the smile on her face. “So now we have the date bit and bone-jumping prerequisites sorted, tell me about your real proposition.”

  “It’s pretty exciting. For me, at least.” Sebastian held out his hand again. “Come and we’ll find somewhere to sit, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  She took his hand, and her fingers tingled when he laced his fingers through hers as he led her to the riverbank. A grassy spot levelled out where the water came into a tiny bay.

  “Do you want to sit on my coat?” He let go of her hand and began
to take his leather jacket off.

  “No, it’s fine. The grass is dry. And it’s a bit nippy for you to sit there in a T-shirt.” Not that she would have minded the view of muscled arms but, if all was said and done, he looked just as sexy in the leather jacket.

  Isabella sat down carefully—not too close to Sebastian, but near enough to be able to hear what he was saying.

  “I’ve been offered a photographic contract,” he said.

  She stared at him. That was the last thing she’d expected him to say. “I thought you were committed to the farm?” She tipped her head to the side and watched as he leaned closer.

  “I am. But this way it’s like having the best of both worlds. I can do it from here, from the farm, I mean. At nights and weekends. I’m going to tell Liam I won’t work weekends.”

  “But on a farm don’t some things have to be done every day?” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Like feeding cattle or something.”

  He laughed. “Cattle eat grass and feed themselves. But there are some chores that have to be done. I’ll have to cut a deal with Liam. A trade off.” Sebastian picked up a flat stone and threw it onto the still water of the river. It jumped three times.

  “Will there be a problem?” she asked.

  The smile had gone from his face. “Liam will see it as another lucky break for me. He’ll say, ‘So wonder boy has a choice photographic contract drop into his lap and expects everyone to take up the slack and work for him.’”

  “Do you really need to do it?”

  “You mean do I need the money?”

  A flush heated Isabella’s neck and ran up into her cheeks. She was pleased it was dark. “No, that’s not what I meant. I mean if it’s going to cause trouble between you and your cousin, and there’s work to be done at the farm on weekends, do you really need to take it on?”

  “Yes, taking photos is as natural to me as breathing. It’s something I need to do.” This time when he threw the stone at the water, it was with a lot more force and it sank without skipping. “And to be honest, it’s a means of getting away on the weekends once Gran and Pop come home. I don’t fancy being stuck at the farm all the time. I know they’ve handed the farm over to the four of us, but the farmhouse is still their home. It’s not home for me. I’m used to being independent.” He stopped talking and stared at her. “Hey, I didn’t mean to dump all that on you.”