Hope's Road (14 page)

He was like pepper to her salt. No, that wasn't it. A wire to her strainer post? That wasn't it either; he'd be going through her then. She could feel her face flush with heat at the thought of
that
. Oh hell, face it, McCauley, he was just
hot
. Really, really hot.

Tammy let out a sigh that would have rivalled an asthmatic's wheeze. She needed to focus.

‘What did you say, girl?' came from outside. ‘It's not my fuckin' fault those stupid people can't cook! They should've taken lessons from my Nellie. Now, there was a woman who could make a man drool.'

Tammy glanced at Nellie and Joe's wedding photo on the wall.

‘She could cook a bread and butter puddin' that would make your insides just sit up and beg for a second helping,' yelled Joe.

A bit like Travis Hunter's kisses, thought Tammy as she stared at the bed again. She'd sure like another serve of them. Those soft lips, the strength of the man as he loomed above her, the feel of his body on hers, moving against her, loving her.

‘And her Sunday roasts were something else . . .' came floating through the door on the breeze.

Crap! What the hell was she in here for again? Meals: that was it. Maybe it was easier to cook for him herself? Surely he'd put up with that, just like he'd put up with something else she'd found out about. Joe had let it slip Travis had been dropping off venison to him every now and then, since way before the accident. She could well imagine that little meeting, each man silently staring the other down. It would be like granite meeting iron.

She wondered if the meat drop-off was more about checking on the old man than the extra tucker. It had made her see another facet of Travis Hunter. Almost against his will, he seemed to want to care and protect the vulnerable, although why he didn't see his own son in that light confounded her.

Tammy forced her mind back to the job at hand, resolutely moving towards the kitchen and its freezer. She already had enough turmoil in her life. She needed to put all feelings and thoughts of Travis in the same sort of cold storage as the food. He . . . it . . . whatever had happened between them was never going to happen again. She needed to make sure of that.

Chapter 22

Trav was in trouble. The clock was inching its way towards six-thirty and he couldn't find a shirt to wear. To make matters worse Billy was watching him with a mystified look on his face as he rushed from ironing board to cupboard. ‘Well, what do you think?' He stood there in his Wrangler jeans and a paisley brown and green swirled shirt. Something that had looked fine ten or so years earlier.

Billy was frowning.

‘What?' Trav peered down. ‘It's the shirt, isn't it?' It was ridiculous.

Billy nodded, hesitantly at first, then really hard.

‘Right.' Trav ripped off the offending article and threw it at the bin. He strode back to the closed corner of the old shack, which took the dubious title of ‘the main bedroom', and retrieved another shirt of pale green with RM Williams picked out in blue thread. ‘It'll have to be this one then, that's all I own.' Trav cursed himself for not thinking ahead. If he'd had time between working, looking after Billy and helping Joe, he might have headed into town and shouted himself some new clothes. Actually tried to impress Cin.

Who was he kidding? It wasn't Cin who Trav wanted to impress. It was the other one. The one who was all woman in her buttoned-down shirt and tight RM Williams jeans. The one with the firm body who only ever showed a hint of cleavage, but who had a voice sexy enough to get his heart pounding and his blood pressure well and truly up.

Her luminous big brown eyes had stared up at him in his dreams for the last fortnight. And who could ever forget that kiss? That beautiful, soft, deep kiss that went on forever and ever. Until it was interrupted by a belligerent old man.

‘Dad. I think that's good.'

Trav hit the earth with a thud. His son was standing in front of him. ‘What?'

‘It's good. The shirt, I mean.' Billy seemed to struggle for a minute before rushing on, ‘You look great. Ms Greenaway will love it.'

Ms Greenaway? His date for tonight. ‘Fuck!' he muttered, immediately feeling resentful about the dance all over again.

The boy flinched and that kicked Trav in the gut. He couldn't get it right. Guilt was like an open maw of shame that clamoured to take hold of anything that was good between him and his son. The child was turning away, his shoulders slumped. Just like Trav used to do when he was a child, when he'd buggered up with
his
dad. Same look. Same slouch. Same defeated stance. ‘Thanks,' he said quickly to Billy's back. The boy half turned. ‘Didn't mean to sound cranky, I'm just a bit . . . like . . . ummm . . .'

‘Nervous?' offered Billy, daringly.

‘Yep. Nervous.' Trav said, reaching out a hand. He touched the boy's head, instinct guiding him. The red hair was soft, so soft, and spiralling like a curly retriever's. Trav quickly took away his hand and shoved it into his pocket. As he walked towards the door, he missed the look of wonder on his son's face.

Old Joe was in fine form. He'd have no fucking babysitters tonight. They'd all be partying in town at the dance and he, Joe McCauley, would finally have the hill and his whole kingdom to himself. At last. Well, except for the boy. Joe was figuring he shouldn't be too much trouble. He might even get to sleep on the old camp bed, seeing there'd be no busy-bodying bastards to look in on him. And the boy could sleep in the bed. There, even Nellie couldn't disagree with that one. She'd love it, finally a child in the house, warm and snug and safe in her bed at long last.

The woman had been having a bit to say lately. All in his mind, of course. He wasn't far enough off his rocker to think she was really there. But still – that night when he'd arrived home from hospital and slept in
their
bed, the first time since she'd died – he'd felt her. Nellie's soft body had rolled into his back like she was shoring up his rear defences, just like she always did before she fell asleep.

And he could have sworn he'd smelled her the next morning in the early hours, just before dawn. Roses. Lavender and roses. An interesting mix, which on Nellie spoke of comfort and safekeeping. Home was what the old woman was to Joe. Mae Rouget had been all class and fun, but Nellie had been steadfast strength and love. He missed her something terrible.

‘I've brought Billy.' Hunter was on his verandah. Joe hadn't even heard him pull up.

The old man quickly pulled his grumpy face on. ‘Right. Well. C'mon over here, boy, give us a look at you.'

Billy shuffled across the verandah boards, clutching a small rolled canvas swag. On his back was a pack filled with stuff, and he had what looked suspiciously like a worn-out teddy peeking out from under his arm. Joe chose to ignore the bear. ‘Stow your swag and pack in the kitchen and come back out. Bring a chair with you.'

‘I'll be going then,' said Travis, his eyes following the boy through the door. He looked back at Joe. ‘Thanks for this.' He stopped a beat then added, ‘I think.' The dog trapper's grin was rueful.

‘You're welcome. Now go. I can see Gibson's car's going down the girl's drive.'
His
smile was sly. ‘Happy hunting, Travis.'

Tammy was looking for her shoes when the doorbell rang. She hadn't heard the car as she was buried in the wardrobe trying to find the scrappy things that the shoe-shop woman had assured her were sandals. More like fine strings of leather hanging off a three-inch heel –
and
they'd cost a fortune. A bit like the peacock blue and green dress she had on.

She'd fallen in love with it, although it wasn't as demure as she was used to. Thinking of sexy Cin and the wolfish Joanne, though, she'd gone beyond her comfort zone and bought the damnable scrap of floating layers of chiffon. When the saleswoman assured her it covered all that it needed to, she hadn't realised just how
little
it actually did.

She pulled the bodice up a bit more, and watched in the mirror as it obeyed gravity and snuck down again, relentless in its intent to show off more cleavage than she was comfortable with. The doorbell pealed again.

Shit. Not only was the bloke persistent, he was on time. She should have guessed. ‘Coming!' she yelled into the wardrobe, then realised he'd have no hope in heck of hearing her; her bedroom was way up the other end of the house. She half ran – trying at the same time to pull on her errant sandals – then limped down two passages, around a few corners, through the kitchen, dining room, and across the closed-in verandah to the back door. She quickly did up the tiny buckles on her shoes, then opened the door.

‘Dean. Hi. You're on time.'

The man was staring at her like she was some strange ­apparition. ‘Yes. I'm always on time.'

Of course. Silly her. Then she realised he was looking at her funny. ‘What's wrong?' Her hand flew up to her ears. Was it cowshit? Hadn't she scrubbed it all off? ‘Have I missed something?'

‘No. No! Nothing at all. It's . . . well, Tammy, you look stunning!' His eyes moved from the tips of her blow-dried hair, over her lightly made-up face and down to the hem of her skirt. Where he stopped and frowned. ‘Do you think they . . . maybe could have . . . well, possibly should have . . . made that dress a bit longer?'

Tammy looked down. Saw that in her flight through the house, the dress had ridden up and now barely covered her thighs. Shit. ‘Do you think I should change?' she said.

‘Oh my goodness, no. No! Together we'll be the belles of the ball!'

She finally took a look at what Dean was wearing. A pair of black slacks, pressed pleats rigidly dissecting each leg into two, topped with a brown and green swirled paisley shirt. The shirt hid a singlet, a white ‘wife beater'. On a man in his thirties? In the bush? She could see a bit of it poking out near his neck, where in shaving he'd missed a run of hairs. The singlet and shirt would have been hip ten or twenty years ago, but right now?

It looked hideous.

She gratefully turned her face away from the paisley as she saw Trav's ute arrive. It rumbled its way past the dairy and pulled to a stop outside the garden gate, just behind her own four-wheel drive.

Travis Hunter slowly appeared, bit by delicious bit: first, a pair of tooled leather cowboy boots (Ariats if she wasn't mistaken. She'd forgotten he was a station-boy from way back). Then came a long pair of denim clad-legs (Wranglers). Followed by strong, muscled arms covered by a gorgeous, soft and worn celadon shirt with its distinctive RM Williams bull-horns logo, sleeves rolled to the elbow. The shirt clung to him, showing the outline of a bluey singlet underneath. He looked freshly showered, his hair all rumpled and softly curling at the tender nape of his neck. The buzz cut was growing out.

‘Deano.' Trav's greeting to the other man was brief. Then he was standing at her back door, drinking her in like fine wine. And Tammy forgot all about paisley vs celadon. She forgot all about white wife-basher singlets vs the tough Bonds blue. She literally forgot about everything other than this man.

Because close up he looked good enough to eat.

And Trav was taking in
her
whole body. Absorbing her – her hair, her face, her eyes, her mouth. His gaze moved down to the indecent amount of cleavage and her nipples standing on high beam, across her flat belly, down, down, down and appearing to take forever as he soaked in her long legs, finally stopping at her barely-there sandals and their tall, sexy heel. ‘You look great,' he managed.

‘She looks more than great, Hunter. She looks sensational!' Dean moved in to claim his date around the waist with a possessive arm. ‘Are you ready, sweetheart? We've got a party to go to!'

Tammy adroitly stepped out of Dean's clasp and half-turned to go inside again. ‘I'll just lock up.' And catch my breath, slow my heart and forget how I nearly made a fool of myself by falling all over Travis Hunter out there.

Dean spun and moved back down the path towards his car. ‘Okay, I'll warm up the old bus for you, love,' he called over his shoulder.

She grimaced, then went to move off to find a key. A hand came out and grabbed her arm.

Travis. ‘You look stunning,' he murmured. His blue eyes bored into her brown ones. He took a stronger hold. ‘Beautiful.' Then he leaned in and placed a soft kiss on her mouth. A question, an exclamation mark, a full stop. He drew back, let go of her arm, cast her a look of rueful apprehension and then turned towards the car that was now bumping down the drive. Jacinta's shiny red convertible, rear spoiler jumping as the tyres hit the potholes in the gravel, mag wheels being spattered with spots of cow-shit.

High up on his hill, Old Joe was naming star constellations to an avid listener. The boy was gaining confidence with every question.

‘Which one's Jupiter? How many moons does it have? What's the Milky Way made up of then? And are we part of it all? You know, the whole university?'

‘Universe, boy. Not university.' Joe swung an ancient-looking telescope this way then that, sharing with him the knowledge of nearly ninety years staring at the night sky.