“Did he ever! It worked better than I could have imagined. He’s just accused me of being a horse thief! Look.” She turned the tablet so that we could see the screen. “He sent a link to an article about a racehorse. She’s unbeaten in her last seven starts, and she won the Jackson Plate a few weeks back. Is that a big race?”
“Yeah. Not as big as the Melbourne Cup, but still pretty important.” I studied the picture. The horse was shown in the winner’s circle at Caulfield. She was chestnut, like Flame. She had a thin, white stripe down her face like Flame. Very similar.
“Apparently, this horse, Fiery Lights, was put out to pasture after the Jackson Plate to rest up for a while before the Melbourne Cup. But she’s been stolen—taken from the paddock the week after the race. Young Seánie’s joking about having to bail me out of an Australian jail. Which will make a change from me having to bail him out of a London one.” She grinned. “Please, Josie, can I take another photo of me with Flame? I’ll tell him she’s a hot tip, but that I’m sworn to secrecy and can’t tell him any more. That will send Young Seánie bonkers—he’ll be convinced it’s Fiery Lights.”
“Of course.”
“If I can get him to place a bet on Fiery Lights winning the Melbourne Cup, it will be epic. He’ll murder me when I get back to London.” She looked thoroughly delighted by the idea.
Josie picked up the tablet and looked at the photo of Fiery Lights. “She’s very similar, isn’t she? Maybe Flame’s stripe is a little thinner.”
I looked again. To me, the two horses looked uncannily alike. “Fiery Lights is unlikely to ever turn up again except in a can of dog food. Poor animal.”
Ger got to her feet. “I’m off to see if Nora’s out of the shower. What time are we riding?”
“Forty-five minutes suit you?”
“I hope so. If Nora’s alive, that is. The other two were already up when I came over here.”
Josie and I sat on the couch vacated by Ger and watched her bright hair as she crossed back to the campground.
“She’s lovely.” Josie turned to face me.
“She’s taken. Her wife, Nora, is bigger than you, so be careful.”
“Ger isn’t my type. Oh, she’s simply beautiful, all right, but I prefer a taller woman. More mature.” Her gaze swept over me from head to toe. “With salt and pepper hair, and who knows how to sit a horse.”
Her voice had a low, caressing tone, silkier, different to her usual pragmatic voice. I wondered what that voice would be like whispering in my ear. Or in the low moan of sexual pleasure.
Desire washed over me, and I could only stare at her, mute, with the images in my head.
“Know anyone like that?” Josie edged closer, so that our knees touched. “A woman like that would be hard to find, harder to woo, impossible to keep.”
“Why impossible?” My voice croaked, as sexy and seductive as a cane toad in a drainage pipe.
“A woman like that would probably not be interested in a drifter who lives in one room above a pub and who owns nothing that doesn’t fit in her car.”
I picked up Josie’s hand, closed in a fist, and cradled it in my larger one. I turned it palm up and unclenched each finger in turn so that her palm was exposed, as if I were Madame Tara the gypsy palmist.
I traced her lifeline. It was long and deeply etched. “You own a horse. I don’t see her fitting comfortably in the passenger seat.”
Josie’s hand twitched in mine. “Yeah, her.”
I tapped her hand. “Your heart line’s broken. That means you’ll have at least two relationships.”
“I’ve already had one.” Abruptly, her fingers clenched, trapping mine within. “If I could find that salt-and-pepper-haired woman, if she were interested in a woman who only has one pair of long pants to her name, then maybe I’d have a second one.”
I freed my fingers from her clasp, only to encircle her wrist and tug. “If the pants were mauve, that could be a deal breaker.”
“I’ll dye them red. Then there’s only the problem of having nothing to my name.”
“Don’t forget that famous racehorse you own,” I teased. “Your Jackson Plate winnings will buy you most of Worrindi, if you wanted it.”
“I’ll breed her. Imagine the foals she’d have.”
“The winner of the Melbourne Cup in 2024.”
“Born and bred on Jayboro Outstation.”
“We’d be on the map. I’d have to build more cabins to accommodate the buyers from the Middle East.”
Josie was silent. Her fingers twisted together where they lay on her jeans. Our coffee cooled beside us. “I like you, Felix,” she said. “A lot. More than I should.”
That little twist of desire robbed me of any answer. When I could speak again, I said, “There’s no predetermined level of attraction. We can take it how it comes.”
“You’re right. I’m used to seeing the end of a relationship before it’s even started. I’m used to moving on—chasing a job, a new town, sometimes even a new country. To think of a relationship with no predetermined end is a new experience for me. I’ve never been anywhere before where I’ve considered stopping.”
“You’re still thinking of staying around?”
Her brown eyes were huge. An early fly buzzed in my ear, but I ignored it and focussed on Josie’s answer.
“Yeah. I don’t plan on leaving. Worrindi—here—well, it’s wormed its way in.”
I wanted to kiss her, and even the knowledge that in a few minutes we’d have to be over at the barn to take the Londoners out for their first ever horse ride didn’t dampen my ardour. I shuffled forwards on the couch. Josie’s breath puffed on my face. I moved closer still, and her eyes drifted shut. Anticipation, I hoped.
My lips touched hers, and I took her lower lip gently between my teeth. She smiled against my mouth, and then I kissed her, my mouth on hers, her lips parting under mine, our tongues together.
She was the first to move away. “We have horses to ride.”
CHAPTER 9
Nora and Geraldine turned out not to be natural riders. Nora, who seemed such a supremely confident person, morphed into a Nervous Nellie once mounted on Smoke. She was so uneasy, I took her and Ger into my schooling ring before I took them out, which was something I seldom needed to do. Nora’s back was so rigid and her muscles so tense that she bounced precariously, even at the walk. Smoke, though, in her time, had seen the nervous, the tentative, and the downright terrified. Her ears flickered back and forth as she read her rider. Nora and Smoke walked slowly around my schooling ring. The reins hung in loops, and Nora held on grimly to the pommel with both hands. Smoke stopped, turned her head, and nudged Nora’s foot with her grey nose. ‘Hey,’ she seemed to be saying, ‘it’s okay. I’ll look after you.’
Indeed, Nora seemed to get the vibe, as she managed a chuckle and loosened one hand from her death grip long enough to stroke Smoke’s neck.
Geraldine did better. Her pony was closer to the ground, which probably made a difference. Although she looked nervous, she held the reins with both hands and listened to the basics that I told her, enough to make horse and rider feel comfortable and safe.
After fifteen minutes, I judged our beginners were okay to take outside. The others scrambled for their mounts while I waited with the Londoners. Josie brought Ben over for me, and the six of us ambled out of the yard.
I rode next to Nora, who gave me an embarrassed grimace, very different to the relaxed person of yesterday.
“Thanks,” she said. “I can’t believe how difficult this is.” She glanced over at Sue and Moni, who were riding side by side a small distance away. They were relaxed in the saddle, reins in one hand, eyes gazing over the landscape. “The rest of you make it look so easy.”
“We all grew up with horses. If I visited London, you’d laugh at my terror of the traffic.”
Nora’s fingers loosened a little from the front of the saddle. “After this, I’m never going to laugh at anyone for anything again.”
“Not until the next family breakfast, anyway,” said Geraldine from my other side. “Family is fair game in our world. Teasing is too mild a word for it. Imagine if they got wind that our Nora was a scaredy-cat on a horse.”
“Don’t you dare.” Nora’s answer was half-hearted, but she smiled at her wife. “By the end of our stay here, me and Smoke will be cantering across this paddock like something out of Gunsmoke. But without the cacti.”
She took one hand from the saddle, looked across at the others, and made a deliberate attempt to copy them. I rather thought that in a couple of days, she and Smoke would indeed be cantering across the landscape.
Josie, who rode the far side of Geraldine, jogged up closer. “Which way are we going?”
Which way were we going? My thoughts spun away from the ride and my guests. Which way were Josie and I going? All the way to the bedroom?
Ben must have sensed my inattention, as he took that moment to put his head down and buck, a tiny lighthearted movement that dislodged me only a little, but made Nora grip Smoke’s mane. Smoke, the sensible old lady that she was, merely laid her ears back at Ben as if to say, ‘Watch it, mister.’ I controlled Ben again and circled around to my place between Nora and Ger.
“How about Nora, Ger, and I take the shortcut and the rest of you go the longer way along the creek? You can go faster.”
I waited until the other three had ridden off and then took the shorter route. Nora was more relaxed with fewer horses around. Ger, too, was settling in and seemed quite comfortable, even when Jetta jogged to keep up with the horses’ longer strides.
“This is amazing.” Nora still had her grip on Smoke’s mane but now managed to look around. “It’s so beautiful in a sparse kind of way. I’m not sure I could live here, but Sue and Moni wouldn’t live anywhere else, so I guess we’ll be visiting a bit over the years.”
“It’s the colours I notice.” Ger jogged up on my other side. “They’re so crisp and clear. That blue sky. The red dirt, the grey-green of the gum leaves. It’s strange, being able to see to the horizon. At home, we’re lucky to see to the end of the street.”
“What have you been doing since you’ve been with Sue and Moni?”
“We’ve been to Mount Isa—the Isa,” Nora amended. “Done the mine tour, been fishing. Been opal fossicking. I found a really pretty piece. I’m going to get it made into a ring for Ger. Mainly, though, we’ve been catching up with Sue and Moni. A lot of sitting around and eating and drinking. Oh, and they have karaoke in the Royal Hotel in Mungabilly Creek now. We nearly shut it down with our awful singing. I miss having Sue around. She was my best friend in London. A fecking good friend at that.” The slightest twinge of an Irish accent coloured her voice as she said “fecking.” “I don’t think she’ll ever move back, though. And I don’t think the people of Mungabilly Creek would let them leave—the town doctor and the lawyer. Hard to replace.”
“They’re both very good at what they do,” I said. “Sue’s helped me out with a few things, and while I see a doctor in Worrindi, I know people who go to Moni.”
“Maybe Sue could give me a job,” joked Nora. “I’m a paralegal. Surely she wants someone to do her drudge work.”
“And I can design you some modern and eco-friendly cabins,” Ger said. “I’m an architect. Not that yours aren’t lovely,” she hastened to add. “They’re so very perfect for here.”
“Maybe I’ll take you up on that one day.”
We’d crossed half the paddock while we’d been talking. “How d’you feel about going a little faster? A gentle trot?”
Ger nodded, and while Nora looked a little doubtful, I could see she wasn’t going to be outdone. “Sure,” she said.
“If you want to stop, just say.” I pushed Ben into a gentle jog and looked to see how they were doing.
One minute, Nora bounced around, looking as if a collision with the ground were imminent; the next, she took a deep breath, and the tension left her body. Suddenly she was relaxed. For the first time, she looked comfortable on Smoke. The mare’s ears pricked, and she snorted as if to say, ‘That’s more like it.’
Ger, who seemed quite comfortable, smiled as if she had expected no less from her lover.
When we slowed to a walk again, Nora patted Smoke.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Interpretive dance.”
My look of bewilderment must have been obvious. Nora grinned.
“About a year ago, Nora and I took an interpretive dance class.” Ger came up on my other side. “It was my idea, something I’d wanted to do for a long time.”
“Because you look fecking gorgeous in bare feet, floating around in chiffon with your hair loose down your back, whereas I look like a dysfunctional giraffe in my scruffy track pants and one of my brother’s T-shirts.”
“But then,” Ger continued, “the instructor talked about relaxing and not thinking about what you were doing. She said to blank the mind and forget about what we’d learnt and what our feet were doing and especially not to think about how we looked. It was like a switch tripped in Nora’s head.”
“I thought about white noise,” Nora said. “Static. Nothingness, and then I let the music in. Nothing else, just the notes and rhythm. Suddenly I was moving, and I didn’t worry about what an eejit I looked, nor that I was ungainly and didn’t know what I was doing. I was still not nearly as good as Ger, but it was better. My limbs knew what to do. And that’s what I did just now. Before, I was too worried about falling off, of hurting Smoke, and about trying to get it right. Then I just blanked it all out and pretended I was falling asleep. And it worked!”
We were nearly back to the home paddock. I heard the sound of hooves and turned in my saddle to see the other three coming at a fast canter. They slowed to a more decorous pace before reaching us.
“Hey,” said Sue. “Look who’s a lot more comfortable now. I thought we were going to have to leave Nora to be dingo food.”
The rest of the ride passed quickly. With so many people helping with the horses, we were done in record time.
“I think I need a hot bath and a massage,” groaned Nora.
“Can’t help with the hot bath, but I have massage skills.” Ger held up small hands.
I watched with a sort of longing as Nora took hold of Ger’s hands, drew her close, and whispered something in her ear. I suspected it was something about Ger’s skill with her hands, as Ger reached up and kissed Nora, grabbing her butt and pulling her close.
Sue and Moni had their heads together too, but it had more of the look of conference. “We’re going to Worrindi to get food for Nora’s great campfire cookout this evening,” Moni announced. “We’ve brought the kangaroo with us, but we’ll get some other meat and spuds and whatever else we can that will be edible when Nora’s finished with it.”
“You mean I don’t have to wrestle a goanna onto the flames?” Nora blinked slowly as if mentally adjusting to the idea.
“I might have lied about that.” Sue looked smug.
“In that case, I’ll come to Worrindi too, now that you’re not going to make me do a Bear Grylls impersonation on the way,” said Nora.
“I didn’t say that,” said Sue. “Do you have any tiger snakes in your freezer, Felix?”
“Sorry,” I said with a straight face. “Only a couple of king browns. You’ll have to trap a tiger snake on the way to town.” The horrified expression on Nora’s face made me burst out laughing.
It seemed very quiet when the others had gone. Josie went to see Flame, and I did a quick clean of the amenities block and went around the few other campers to make sure they were okay.
I mentioned to them that there would be a campfire that evening and that they were all very welcome to come and cook their dinner on the communal fire, as well as share billy tea and damper. Josie was right; this was as good idea. I hadn’t repeated it when I was by myself, because I just didn’t have the sort of effervescent people skills needed to make the evenin
g a success. But seeing how they all responded with enthusiasm, I figured I would have to give it a go.
Josie was still down in the paddock with Flame. I could see her mop of hair and mauve jeans as she stood in the shade with her horse.
I went back to the house and caught up on a couple of email enquiries about the cabins. On a whim, I searched the stolen racehorse Fiery Lights. I found a different picture of her. As before, she really did look the spit of Flame. This photo showed all of her, and she had the same two white socks on her hind legs. I enlarged the photo—maybe the markings were not exactly the same, but they were pretty close. The article said there was no trace of her—a lead on a horse in Western Australia had turned out to be false.
For a moment, I entertained the idea that Flame was Fiery Lights. But that would mean Josie was lying about Flame being her horse, was lying about wanting her near. No. I shut down that line of thought. Flame was Josie’s horse, and the similarity was just a coincidence. After all, most thoroughbreds had that fine-boned look about them. And what person in their right mind would keep a valuable racehorse on some of the poorest, most drought-prone pasture in Queensland—indeed, we were in the middle of a drought. And then there was the possibility of flooding that could endanger all stock. No, you’d have to have a ’roo loose in the top paddock to consider it. If you wanted to hide a racehorse, you’d keep it somewhere on the coast, where the grass was lush and green and the horse would blend in with many others. You’d dye its markings. You wouldn’t keep it at Jayboro Outstation.
I’d moved on from searching racehorses on the internet and was halfway through an email to the builder to get a quote for the third and fourth cabins when I heard the hollow thud of boots on the veranda. Maybe a new customer, although I hadn’t heard a vehicle. It was Josie who walked into the office.
“Am I interrupting?”
With the light behind her, her hair was a wild and static cloud.
“No. Definitely not.” I wanted to hold her, kiss her, remind myself of what we had started so recently.
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