My Fair Aussie

by Jennifer Griffith

  “I can be quite strident when provoked. Like a rattlesnake.”

  “No, not the snake. You, Elizer, are like the bear. A mama bear.”

  I wasn’t sure I was in love with that description. My mistake and subsequent freak-out left a heat at my neck of shame.

  “I’ve always loved foxes. I’m just kind of protective of my loved ones.”

  “Clearly. Look at lucky Sylvie. I’ve never even met the wee one, and I’m practically jealous of the tot, the way you’re so caring about her. It’s beautiful.” He rode closer to me. “Just like you, Elizer. Honestly, when I left Cherrington Downs to come to America and hike the Grand Canyon before meeting with Dr. Smith about the cattle breeding, I didn’t think I’d meet a girl like you. Kind, caring, with a beautiful, beautiful soul.”

  His compliments showered over me like sparks off a welding torch against steel. They prickled against my skin all over, then warmed me. I could barely concentrate on the other things he was saying about his reasons for being here. I filed them away and just focused on the feeling of Henry Lyon’s praise.

  “I really don’t think I’m as caring as all that. I mean, look what I’ve been dragging you through.” Mo-No, the dress-ups, the forced fakery. “From the moment you told me you were in distress, in need of a phone, I should have handed you mine and said to call whoever you needed to. Instead, it’s been a full week of manipulation and using others.” And worse. “I’m not really worthy of any of that praise, least of all from you.”

  We had to duck under a low-slung limb of a pine to stay on the trail. Pungent sap stickied my arm.

  “Are you kidding?” he asked. “Do you have any idea how hungry I was? Or how dirty? You gave me the best snags and mashed spuds dinner I’ve had this side of my late mother’s cooking at Cherrington Downs Station. You offered me a hot bath and clothes to wear. Plus the poshest place to sleep there is, unless you count under the stars.”

  “With the coyotes?”

  “The coyotes do make the stars less posh. I’ll give you that much.”

  The helipad area opened up in front of us, spreading right to the cliffs. Friday morning, a full week ago we’d stood here, collecting Chachi under the wintry blue dome of the sky. It felt like a lot longer than a week because of the huge transition that had taken place inside me in such a short time.

  I had fallen for the king of the bus station. Hard. And it felt like there would be no turning back ever.

  We rode up to the east of the helipad, over the rocks, our horses at a slow gait, threading between granite boulders and dodging spiny cactus.

  “Keep your eyes out for the fox,” Henry said. “When I got our assigned area, the organizer told me this is their main hideout every year, so chances are good we’ll spot one, if not several.”

  “Really?” That prospect made me tingle almost as much as Henry’s touch. “I’ve been here a hundred times to pick up Sylvie or Chachi, and I’ve never seen one.”

  “You should have been looking. It’s amazing what you can see when you look.”

  I looked over at Henry. Something was in his countenance that I’d only seen in romance movies. It was the way Jim Craig, the man from Snowy River, had looked at Jessica when he said, “I’ll be back for the horse—and whatever else is mine.”

  It looked like…love.

  I had to look away. This wasn’t real. I couldn’t let myself believe that what I felt for him could be requited. The time had been too short. I still didn’t know anything about his past. Well, at least nothing that made much sense. But I wanted to. I wanted to know everything, and to let him know everything there was to know about me. I wanted to be part of Henry. I wanted my life to be The Henry and Eliza Show.

  “That sounds good.”

  “What does?”

  “The Henry and Eliza Show.”

  What! I’d said that out loud? What other mortifying clues of my internal dreaming had I muttered? I could melt right off my horse into a mud puddle of shame.

  Thank the heavens above for a tender mercy that rustled in the brush nearby, providing the one change of subject that could possibly wipe away that last humiliating topic: I spotted a Channel Island Fox.

  “Look. What’s that?” The shady side of the chaparral stirred again, revealing more than one of the silver-furred creatures. “Did it have pointed ears, or was it—?”

  “I think you spotted one. No, three. Good eye.” Henry grinned over at me. “And we don’t even have to shoot them. Except with our cameras. Pull out your phone and take your best shot.”

  I did. It was terrible. I haven’t taken a good photo in my entire life.

  “I don’t think the biologist will even be able to tell they’re there in the picture.”

  “Mostly they need us to mark their location and number on the map.”

  “I saw three in there. A big one and two smaller.”

  “Mother and kits, eh? Good on ya, Elizer.” His grin and compliment warmed me.

  We scoured the rest of the area, sleuthing out a half dozen more foxes and their holes. Henry spotted four himself, and I stumbled across the last one when Trafalgar and I scaled a small incline. Its eyes met mine, and the fox didn’t look away. I was one with the fox.

  “It’s getting late. Do you think we’ve covered the area fully?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I hate to quit, though, because with every find I feel more and more like Elizer Galatea, Protector of the Weak, and you’re Henry Lyon, Champion of the Endangered. It’s a rush.”

  Henry tugged Chantilly’s reins so he was right up next to me. His leg pressed against the side of my calf muscle.

  “We make a good team, Elizer. We should have our own show.”

  Oh, so he hadn’t forgotten. Shame sent tendrils of heat up my neck and singed my cheeks. A gust of wind whipped my hair, then it switched direction. It brought the sound of the breakers on the cliffs crashing into my ears.

  “You won’t mind if I go take one last look at the waves below the cliffs, would you? Don’t know when I’ll get to see them again.”

  Already at the mere memory of the drop-off of the cliff, I was shaking and sweating, my hands gripping the reins on Trafalgar as tight as a vise.

  “Go ahead. Yeah. I’ll wait here.”

  Henry eyed me.

  “You ought to come and take a look, Elizer. They won’t reach up and grab you, I promise.”

  “I’m more of an inland California girl. Or an open ocean type of girl. Not a looking-down-from-heights-at-powerful-water type of girl.”

  “Yeah, but it’s gorgeous. And not dangerous if you just look. Please? I don’t want you to miss out on this beautiful thing. You don’t have to let fear be the controlling factor.”

  Those words struck me. I’d let fear control me a few times in my life—like not aiming for getting a job in my field, or not standing up to Mo-No when she was being outrageously callous toward Sylvie.

  “You’re right. I’ll at least try. But you have to stay right by me.”

  “I promise.” His words felt like a down comforter, nestling all around me. I dismounted, and we tethered Trafalgar and Chantilly to a tree.

  Hand in hand, we paced to the edge of the cliff. The ocean was louder than usual today. Usually I’d see its smashing power against the rocks as angry, but today they felt like a mixture of terror and giddy excitement, mirroring the slamming of my emotions around in my chest as I gripped the hand of the coolest guy I’d ever known, ready to attempt a second time to peer down at the scariest sight I’d ever experienced in my life.

  Having my hand firmly in Henry’s gave my legs fuel to propel me forward, but my breath came in hiccuppy gasps.

  “I think” —hic— “this is close enough.” Hic, hic.

  However, Henry led me gently, a step at a time, taking me to a good vantage point. Good being a debatable adjective.

  “We really can see much better up here.” He drew me in, like a fisherman with a rod and reel. “And if we’re lucky we can cat
ch a bit of the cold spray on our faces. There’s nothing better, I say.”

  Each of my steps was smaller than the one before, but progress happened anyway.

  “You’re doing great. You’ll make it.” Henry’s little prompts kept coming. “I’ve got you. I’ll keep you safe.”

  He wasn’t laughing at me. He wasn’t being condescending. He was supporting me, making me face an irrational fear.

  “I’m good right here.”

  “And you’ll be good right up here, too. See? I have such a strong grip on you. You’re not going to fall anywhere.” He pressed his cheek close to mine, where I could feel the muscle working in his jaw, and smell the scent of his toothpaste. “I won’t let you fall.”

  At those words, I closed my eyes. Behind them, I was falling, free-falling, an exhilaration that stemmed from Henry’s nearness. The sensation of flight radiated out from the center of my chest to my fingertips, stopping my breathing, curling my toes.

  Free-falling into deep affection for Henry Lyon.

  “You’re right, Henry. I am going to be okay.”

  “You’re more than okay.” He stood behind me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders as we both looked out at the scene. “Look, you’re at the edge and tasting the saltwater.”

  When I parted my lips to take in a breath, I found he was right: the sea spray made the air savory. Each successive attack from the sea charged with fury against the rock of the island, but in this moment, I didn’t picture myself plummeting into its violence. All I thought of was the freedom of falling, falling, falling in Henry’s strong embrace.

  Yes, my pulse was pounding, but it had very little to do with the breakers on the rocks below.

  “At the center, the ocean looks so calm, serene. It’s just at the edges where it gets messy,” I said, thinking deeply. My plan to get Henry Lyon, bus station king, to fool the snobbiest woman on earth into falling for him, had looked so perfectly reasonable on the main surface. It was just here, at the edges—where I was standing—that it frayed apart. Because who had done the real falling?

  “Henry?”

  “Hmm?” He was nuzzling the hair behind my ear. “Yes, Elizer?”

  “Henry?”

  He took me by the shoulders and turned me to face him. I looked up at the gray of his eyes, the same color as the churning sea beneath us. I’d expected to see a wry grin or a triumphant, I did it, I cured her fear look on his face, but nothing like that awaited me.

  Instead, I saw desire. And I recognized it because it churned in me as strong as the waves beneath us.

  “I’m going to kiss you now.”

  “You should,” I whispered, with a frantic little nod.

  Henry’s lips brushed mine, a tender, tentative touch. I inched closer to him, my arms reaching around his neck, my fingers threading into the softness of his hair, the wind whipping my hair against both of us. He pressed his saltwater-tinged mouth on mine more firmly, and he took me in his arms like I belonged to him and would never belong to anyone else.

  This kiss turned my future into a series of open doors. Whether they were crazy, senseless doors, I didn’t care, so long as they were with him.

  Would he let me be part owner of the bus station with him? We could take turns going to the tour bus and asking for dehydrated stew for lunch. We could sleep under the stars with the coyotes. We could hail helicopters whenever we saw them while we were looking down the deep ravines for the river. I didn’t care. So long as I was living it alongside Henry Lyon, I was pretty sure life could be as amazing as this soul-bending kiss.

  “That” — his breathing came quick and happy— “was amazing.”

  “You’re amazing. How do you do it?”

  “Do what? Kiss like that? I’m here to tell you, it takes two to kiss like that.”

  I let my hands slide down into his.

  “No, you know, charm everyone. Help everyone feel like they’re the only person in the room with you? Because that’s what you do, you know.”

  “Not sure. I’ve spent quite a bit of time alone. For work at the station. So when I get the chance to actually be with people, I really try to value it.”

  Work. He had a job, then? I’d never asked that specific question, which should have been on the duh, obvious first question level. Geez. This was getting to be a pattern with me, like not asking about the fox hunt really being a hunt.

  “What kind of work?”

  “You know. I told you—the station.”

  Oh, right. The bus station. My heart turned to led and fell into my stomach. I wished to heaven above that he was the lucid, amazing man he seemed to be at every second he didn’t talk about his homeless kingdom fantasy as though it were his reality. However, the new me refused to let a bomb like that just lie undetonated. I had to explode it with further questions. I wasn’t going to stay in the dark any longer about Henry Lyon. I needed to know.

  “You didn’t learn to play tennis at the station.”

  “No. You’re right.”

  “And not golf, either. There’s no golf course at the station.”

  “Not with fairways and things, although that might be an idea. There’s enough room out there, now that you mention it. Upkeep would be a nightmare, though. I’ve got very little time for landscaping, especially intense level like you’d need for a golf course.”

  Good point. It would never work in a station. Not even a big train station, like they had in downtown L.A.

  Oh! What was I doing? I was getting sucked into his web of fantasy here.

  I had other, more probing questions to ask. Focus.

  “And then there was yachting. You were impressive, I hear. Threading the gap between the two haystack rocks without wrecking the Bainbridges’ boat.”

  “Now that, my dear, was dumb luck.”

  “Dumb luck with a million-dollar yacht.”

  “True. But I’d been whitewater rafting, and how different could it be? Besides, you have to take chances. You have to go to the edge and look over and see what’s there, and whether you can conquer it.”

  I stood at the edge. With Henry.

  “You’re a continual surprise, Henry.”

  “So are you. I’m pretty chuffed at how brave you were today. First being willing to put yourself between the fox and whoever was hunting it in your imagination, and now this. Pretty impressive stuff, Elizer.” He smiled now, and I caught a glimpse of the teeth, and in their blinding glare, I didn’t care if he was considering putting in a few holes of a golf course in downtown L.A.’s rattiest bus station. He was gorgeous, he was caring, and he had a kiss that could melt the cartilage in my knee. I was all his.

  But he was leaving, and I’d kissed him, against the express orders of my boss. Plus, in kissing him, I’d just made a ridiculous mess—because now that I’d tasted it, how could I ever go a day without it again?

  ***

  “Nine foxes at the cliffs, was it? Well done.” The current but retiring mayor of San Nouveau placed a medal around Henry’s neck. “That’s second most of anyone else in the hunt. Silver medal.”

  We’d been the last to return to the stables and report our finds, and everyone was ready to get going on lunch and drinks.

  “Thank you for this, Mayor Jamley,” Henry said, patting the medal speaking into the microphone. “But I couldn’t have done it without Eliza Galatea here. She’s got a natural talent for it. She spotted six of the nine herself.” He took off the medal and put it around my neck, allowing his hands to linger at my shoulders and suffusing my body with the physical equivalent of a sigh.

  “That’s nice. If ever there’s an opening in the Channel Islands Conservation Authority we’ll keep her in mind, since she’s already been security cleared. Now—lunch.”

  The stable yard emptied faster than a chapel after Sunday school. Henry reached down and took my hand. I let him, even though he’d been all over San Nouveau with Monique-Noelle for the past week, and people might notice my supplanting her in her absence.


  The Mayor, though, called Henry over to him one more time, and then, speak of the devil, apparently there wasn’t any Mo-No absence after all, because here came my boss riding up in the Bainbridge golf cart, her gigantic blond hairstyle haloing the angriest face I’d ever seen her sport—and that was saying something.

  “What, exactly, is going on here, Eliza?” Her shrill tone spooked a horse, and whinnying erupted all through the stables. “I let you out of my sight for one minute, allow you to stop watching Chachi for one morning, and what do you do but move in on my boy toy. Are you out of your ever-loving mind?”

  “Hi, Monique-Noelle.”

  “Don’t you hi me.” She climbed out of the cart and shoved her hands onto her hips, the better to aim the nails she was spitting. “Do you not know that I hold your very future in my hands?” She held out her fingers, pinching her thumb and index finger together as if she dangled something by a thread: implying my whole world. “I employ you. That means I can fire you. Like that.” Monique-Noelle snapped her fingers, aiming them at me like a weapon. “Third strike, Eliza. You’re out.”

  “I’m fired?”

  “You heard me. Get off the island.” She shoved a package into my arms, heavy, addressed from Polly. I nearly dropped it until I remembered it was probably my laptop.

  And Henry’s international phone.

  Henry walked up. He must have heard some of the conversation, because Mo-No’s face warped through three different emotions: horror, embarrassment, and then a fake-looking flirt-face.

  The flirt didn’t work.

  “Wait a minute, Monique.” Henry stepped in front of me, a human shield against the nail-spitting. “She loves your daughter far too much for you to make a snap decision like that.” Kudos to Henry for using the word snap, above and beyond the fact that he had come to my defense. “You’re not going to find anyone who loves Sylvie more or will take better care of her.”

  “Sylvie is enrolling in boarding school.”

  “She’s a toddler. There’s no such thing.” I found my voice and my spine at the same time. “It’s time you stepped up and took an interest in your daughter. She’s a gorgeous baby. She needs a mother.”