‘You’ve got it.’
There was only one large forklift on the job, a telehandler, and it was constantly in demand. It took good communication and planning for it to always be in the right place at the right time.
Alex closed the meeting. Everyone was preparing to leave when he held up his hand and said, ‘Oh, one more thing before you go. The Aboriginal monitors will be through on Monday or Tuesday morning.’ He looked at Ben. ‘They asked if they could stay overnight, if we have the rooms. There’re some sacred sites they’re investigating out west.’
‘No can do, Boss,’ Ben said. ‘We’re full up. But I’ll warn Ruby. Those blokes know how to eat.’
‘And drink,’ Frank muttered, and Alex’s eyes hardened in silent warning. Frank rolled his eyes and went out of his way to walk past Leah, giving her a defiant look as he purposely rubbed up against her. Leah pulled away. Frank smirked. Dee was looking daggers at Frank while Ben, Tony and Phil filed out the door, clueless to the office drama playing out behind them.
Frank sauntered out and Dee banged her thigh on the corner of the desk in her hurry to follow him out. Sad, thought Leah.
When it was only the two of them left, Alex said, ‘Thanks for today, Leah.’
‘For what?’
‘For your easy company. And for answering my nosy questions.’
‘No worries,’ she said, manoeuvring her chair towards the door. She’d felt a degree of discomfort after she’d shared with Alex. Not many people knew about her parents.
He touched her arm. She stopped. ‘Remember what I said about after-hours calls.’
‘Okay.’
Her arm tingled when he dropped his hand and she wished he’d put it back. A pulse of charged silence passed between them.
‘I’m going to dinner before there’s nothing left.’ She shoved the chair under the desk, groaning at the pile of paperwork overflowing her in-tray. Where the hell had that come from? It could wait; dinner couldn’t. ‘Aren’t you coming to eat?’ she said when Alex sat down behind his desk.
‘Shortly.’ He was already preoccupied with his email.
‘Do you want me to bring you something?’ He looked up. Heat rushed to her cheeks. ‘I know you’re busy, with work and everything else going on in your life right now. I don’t mind, honestly.’
‘You don’t need to do that. I’m not hungry now – big lunch – and anyway, I can rustle up something later.’
‘You’d better, and more than a packet of crisps at the bar.I noticed what you ate for lunch, and it wasn’t a big meal.’
Alex leaned back in the chair, folding his arms. ‘When did you become the food police?’
‘You have a lot going on, here and at home. You need to look after yourself, stay healthy. I wouldn’t be any kind of health professional if I didn’t point that out.’
A series of emotions flitted across his face. And then, throwing her completely, he smiled. Leah’s heart thumped. He was gorgeous.
‘You always say what you think, don’t you?’
‘Yep, most of the time. I’ll see you later,’ she said, and rushed out, suddenly desperate to get away from him. She needed to put some distance between them, get some perspective back. When had he stopped irritating her and started turning her on instead?
The tables were empty, and Ruby was wiping down the benches when Leah dropped into the mess an hour later. She’d retreated to her comfort zone – the first-aid room – to think and to do the daily checks. Then her stomach had gurgled again and the thought of nine more hours without food sent her scurrying to the mess.
‘You want something to eat, you’ll have to make yourself some toast or something, Blondie,’ Ruby said. ‘There’s plenty of food, but if you want me to prepare it, you come at mealtimes.’
‘I’m sorry, Ruby. I sort of got waylaid. I’ll make myself something, all I need is to be pointed in the right direction.’
The cook showed her where to find what she needed. ‘Make sure you clean up after yourself, Blondie.’
Ruby left. Leah was leaning against the counter finishing her second slice of toast and Vegemite when she heard a door slam. Moments later Alex appeared in the kitchen entrance.
‘I thought you were going to dinner over an hour ago,’ he said, reaching for the bread. He dropped four slices into the toaster.
‘I got sidetracked.’ She slid the Vegemite and butter along the stainless steel bench towards him. ‘There’s cheese if you want it.’
‘Thanks.’ He folded his arms and they both stood watching the toaster.
‘I apologise if I overstepped the mark earlier. When and what you eat isn’t any of my business.’
‘Don’t be sorry. You were right.’
The toast popped up and Leah jumped. Alex lifted out a slice and buttered it.
‘Heather, my sister, is worried about Dad. That’s why I was late for tonight’s debrief – she rang when we got back. He was discharged from hospital today. She said he’s as flat as a tack. He’s staying with her for the time being, but Lew, her husband, isn’t the most understanding of men. Actually, he’s a pain in the arse.’ Alex took a bite of toast and chewed slowly, his expression distant.
‘Heather’s only got a couple more weeks leave before she’s back at work, and we’re coming to our busiest phase here. I can’t leave and go home to look after Dad.’
‘What does your sister do?’
‘She’s an exec assistant for some big-headed suit in the public sector.’
‘You don’t have any other siblings?’
‘Lisa lives back of beyond with her husband and four kids. Getting away isn’t really an option for her.’
‘What about your rest leave? Annual leave? Compassionate leave?’
He laughed without humour.
‘What, you don’t get any time off? That can’t be right. You need to talk to Paul —’
Alex held up his hand and Leah shut up.
‘I get the occasional weekend off but that’s about it. I’ve supervised projects like this before, and I know full well what I signed up for.’
‘Must play havoc with your personal life.’
Alex went to a cupboard above the bench and took down a jar of honey. He obviously knew his way around the kitchen.
‘I don’t have a personal life. Ask my ex-wife.’
Was he was trying to tell her something? If he was, she wasn’t sure what to think about the message.
‘What about when the project ends? You must get some downtime then.’
He shrugged. Honey dripped from his toast onto his fingers. He licked it off. Heat swept through her like a blowtorch and she had to turn away.
‘Yeah, the pace eases up for a while. But there’s the mopping up, reports to write, and then it’s on to whatever comes next. And any spare time I do get, I spend with the boys and Dad.’
That cooled her down a bit. She reached for the electric kettle on the bench and filled it up. ‘You want a cuppa?’
Alex nodded. ‘Come and sit down,’ he said when they’d made tea and put the toast things away.
‘Surely the company isn’t so unfeeling they wouldn’t give you more time off if you needed it. There must be a policy on special leave.’
‘There is. Claire, my ex-wife, repeatedly accused me of using work to avoid my other responsibilities.’ He paused, lifted his broad shoulders. ‘Maybe she was right. I’ve had plenty of time to reflect, and in the last year of our marriage it was easier to pack my bags and hop on a plane rather than deal with two moody adolescents and a stroppy wife.’
Leah watched him over the rim of her mug. What could she say to that? In her nursing days she’d worked with women whose husbands and partners were fly-in fly-out workers and she’d listened to them bitching in the tearoom. She knew it was hard on any relationship.
‘What? No comment?’ He tilted his head to one side and smiled at her and she almost melted into a puddle right there on the plastic dining-room chair. Oh no, she thought.
‘Let me put it this way. Looking back, I think Richard might have found me a bit more interesting if I had shirked my responsibilities every now and then. And these days, apart from myself, my dog is the only creature I have total responsibility for. I hate leaving her. She hates me going. But when I get home, after about five minutes, Sasha is so pleased to see me she’s forgotten I’ve been away.’ Leah tucked one of her legs up under her. ‘What I’m trying to say is, my experience doesn’t put me in a position to give an opinion on yours.’
‘Are you always so pragmatic?’ Alex asked.
Leah was considering how to answer when the door burst open and Frank Ballard stumbled in.
‘Well, well, this is cosy,’ he said, leaning heavily on the door.
Alex had his back to the door but his expression changed when Frank spoke and he slowly turned around. ‘What do you want, Frank? The kitchen is closed.’
‘Looking for Ruby. The slanty-eyed cow owes me thirty bucks. She cheats at poker.’
Alex stood up, rounding on Frank. ‘What did you call her?’
Leah stood up slowly. ‘She’s not here, Frank.’
‘Well, I can see that, but don’t worry, I’ll find her. I’ll leave you two lovebirds to it.’ Frank leered at Alex. ‘And here’s me thinking she batted for the other side.’
‘Shut up, Frank,’ Alex said. ‘Go back to your room and sleep it off.’
Frank cackled with laughter and stumbled out.
Leah gathered up their mugs. They clinked together. Her hands were trembling. ‘The man is a racist and a bigot.’
‘He’s harmless. He just can’t hold his booze.’
‘For a second you looked like you wanted to thump him.’
‘I did. Spur of the moment. But some things you just don’t do, no matter how badly you want to.’ Alex caught her with his blue gaze.
She couldn’t look away even if she’d wanted to. She swore her heart actually jumped in her chest when he lifted his hand and ran a callused finger down her cheek.
‘He didn’t upset you too much, did he?’
Her hands had stopped shaking but when he’d touched her, her whole body vibrated. She shook her head. ‘I’m okay.’ She swallowed. ‘I’ll wash these cups and then I’m off. I’m beat.’
‘I’ll do it and lock up.’ He took the cups from her. ‘You go.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure. See you in the morning.’
She scurried out of the mess, grateful for the slap of the cold night air against her burning cheeks. ‘Bloody hell,’ she muttered, wrapping her arms tightly around herself as she hurried across the camp to her room. This was ridiculous. How would she manage for the next weeks and months if every time Alex looked at her she turned into a gooey mess?
‘Can’t happen,’ she told herself, unlocking her room. Two nights ago she’d been angry and annoyed with him. Tonight she’d wanted to jump his bones. He had to stop giving her those looks. In the mess she’d overheard the crass jokes made about Dee and Phil, and there was no way she’d provide the fodder for similar jokes to be made about her and Alex. And then there was the issue of their respective jobs. She couldn’t afford to lose her perspective about any of it.
Leah lay in bed, strategising how she could do her job and avoid Alex. She wasn’t oblivious to the irony of her situation – after months and months on her own she’d met someone she was attracted to, and he was strictly out of bounds. But Alex was right. Some things you just didn’t do, no matter how badly you wanted to.
Monday night at dinner, Leah celebrated with a generous slice of chocolate mud cake – she’d survived the first week on the job, and she was making inroads into building her credibility.
‘What are you smiling about?’ Jason asked from across the table.
She looked up and licked the last smears of chocolate off the spoon. ‘I’m celebrating. I have survived one week, relatively unscathed.’
‘Riiiight,’ he said.
‘Think back, Jason, to last Monday morning. For a minute there I didn’t think I’d be here for an hour, let alone a week.’
‘Oh, yeah. The boss wasn’t too happy to see you instead of Steve.’ He frowned. ‘Was that only a week ago?’
‘It was.’ She pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘And I think I deserve another piece of cake.’
‘Too right,’ he said. ‘I’m more than happy to celebrate with you.’
‘What are we celebrating?’ Alex said, sidling up to their table with his meal. Damn. She hadn’t seen him come in, or noticed him at the bain-marie.
‘Leah’s been here a week and lived to tell the story,’ Jason said.
‘Congratulations. Definitely worth a celebration.’ Alex’s smile sent a shiver skipping down her spine.
There was more than amusement in his voice and, with a start, Leah realised it was respect. Her heart swelled and for once she went with it, not trying to talk herself out of feeling what she was feeling. But when she returned from the dessert bar she was so conscious of Alex sitting right beside her it was ridiculous. She could feel the energy emanating from him, smell the faintest whiff of the cologne he wore. The moment she’d bolted down the second piece of cake she jumped to her feet.
‘Excuse me, but I have to go get my washing out of the machine.’ Without giving Jason or Alex a chance to respond, she fled.
The laundry, not much bigger than the first-aid room, was crammed with three washing machines and dryers, a trough and a compact folding bench. All the dryers were in use so Leah loaded her wet washing into a plastic carryall, grabbed the bucket of pegs and went to the clothesline behind the kitchen.
The line was used for tea towels and dishrags, but Leah had seen clothes hanging on it. There was sufficient light from the bulb above the kitchen door for her to hang out the jeans and shirts. Not keen on sharing her underwear with the whole camp, she left it in the bag and took it back to her room. Pegged onto a line strung around her room and bathroom, it wouldn’t take long to dry.
A fist pounding on her door woke Leah from a deep and dreamless sleep. She threw back the doona. Eleven fifteen. She’d been in bed an hour. She dragged her jacket over the t-shirt she slept in and opened the door to find Ben standing on the step, fist raised, ready to give the door another hammering. ‘What’s up?’
‘Bar fight. One of the riggers has a split lip, and he might have broken the other bloke’s nose. There’s a lot of blood.’
‘Tell me you’re joking?’
‘Afraid not.’
‘Give me a minute to put on more clothes. Did you ice it?’
He nodded.
‘Okay. I’ll be there in five.’ Leah closed the door.
Two minutes later, dressed and fully awake, she was halfway down the path to the first-aid room when she stopped, spun around and retraced her steps. The light was on in Alex’s room and he opened the door seconds after she’d knocked.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Bar fight. Two down.’
‘Do you want me to come?’
‘Nope.’ It irritated her that he thought this was necessary. ‘Ben will be there,’ she said.
‘Let me know when you get back.’
‘Okay.’
She turned to go, pausing when he said, ‘Leah —’
‘I know, I know, be careful,’ she said as she strode off, aware that he didn’t close his door until she was out of sight.
It took one sweep of the group outside the closed mess for Leah to pick out the two casualties – they both had blood spattered down the fronts of their shirts and bags of crushed ice pressed to their faces. A small, sombre crew of onlookers sat at the tables, several still nursing beer cans. Leah took in the scene and decided on the spot: everyone would be blowing into the bag at the next morning’s pre start.
‘Right, what happened here? Were either of you knocked out?’
Both men slowly shook their heads. ‘We fell over, tripped each other up,’ the shorter of the
two men mumbled through a swollen lip. ‘I hit my lip on the table.’
A murmur of corroboration followed.
‘Oh yeah, I get it, and you had your arm out as you fell and he accidentally ran into it,’ she said, easing the bloody icepack away from the other man’s face. ‘At your ages you should know better,’ she said.
They nodded contritely, avoiding looking at each other.
Ben clicked his tongue. ‘Doesn’t matter how old they get, some blokes never bloody learn.’
‘You’d better both come over to the first-aid room so I can get a better look at you.’
With Ben following, Leah guided them across the camp and into the first-aid room.
‘Bit cosy in here,’ Ben said, ‘I’ll hang around outside. Give me a hoy if you need me.’
‘Thanks,’ Leah said and threw him a quick smile.
It took her forty-five minutes to take their observations and clean up their injuries. There weren’t any broken bones, but a lot of blood because the man with the suspected broken nose took a low dose of aspirin daily to thin his blood.
Both men were quiet and extremely cooperative, and Leah couldn’t help but see the funny side as she cleaned up their injuries. Neither of them appeared to have had too many beers and they both stuck to the ‘falling over’ story.
‘I’ll see you here in the morning, straight after the pre start, to see whether you can return to work.’
They mumbled their assent and she handed them over to Ben to see them back to their rooms.
By the time she cleaned up and finished the paperwork, it was well after midnight. When she made her way back through the sleeping camp to her room, the distant grumble of the generator was the only sound in the still night air. Leah hesitated, debating whether to knock on Alex’s door like he’d requested. There was no light visible, making the decision easier. But no sooner had her key slid into the lock than his door opened.
‘Is everything okay?’ he said.
‘Nothing serious. They fell, apparently.’
‘Ah, that old story.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘You didn’t knock.’
Leah shivered. ‘I thought you’d be asleep. I didn’t want to wake you. And this is ridiculous anyway, me having to report in and out.’
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