by Fiona Lowe
Flynn was hiding out on Kirra and wanted no part of a relationship.
Not that she could offer him that even if he wanted one.
A sudden thought, clear and dazzling, burst in her head. Perhaps they’d met so she could help him move on, show him that the actions of one woman shouldn’t derail his life. Perhaps her job was to bring him back from hiding and make him realise how much he was missing by retreating from the world.
Flynn deserved the happy-ever-after she’d never know, and she was determined he would have it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MIA placed the phone back on its cradle.
‘How is he?’ Jenny asked the same question she’d asked every morning. It had been a week since Jai had been airlifted to Darwin and soon after transferred south to Adelaide for specialist burns treatment.
‘He’s still in Intensive Care but they’re weaning him off the respirator so this is good news.’ Mia tried to sound positive but it was early days yet. Burns victims often faced their hardest challenge a couple of weeks after the initial injury.
‘He’s not coming home for a long time.’ Susie sighed and patted Jenny’s shoulder.
Mia nodded as Susie spoke the words she hadn’t wanted to say. When islanders left Kirra they often pined for their beloved home, their well-being so intrinsically linked to their traditional lands. Not only did Jai have a huge physical battle on his hands, he was also a thousand kilometres from his home and his family.
‘But as soon as he’s well enough he’ll be transferred back to Darwin and then his family can visit him and we can organise a roster of people to go over.’ Mia scribbled an idea on a yellow sticky note. ‘Perhaps we can raise some money for ferry fares by having a fete?’
Susie’s white teeth flashed as she smiled. ‘That’s a good idea, Sis.’
Happiness spread through Mia. She constantly trod a fine line, being the non-indigenous team member. She was there to teach, not to preach, and not every idea she had worked but this one seemed to be well received. ‘We could ask the child-care centre to do face painting and have a barbecue stall and…’ She caught sight of Flynn who had unexpectedly appeared in the doorway, as was his wont. ‘And we could have a dunk tank with Dr Flynn as the target.’
‘Hey, I heard that!’ Flynn sounded affronted but his hazel eyes crinkled in a warm smile, which he directed straight at her.
She hugged it close.
The two health workers giggled.
‘That Jimmy, he has a good throwing arm,’ Susie teased, before turning to Mia. ‘All nurses get taken on bush camp and your turn is tomorrow.’
‘Bush camp? What’s that?’
‘We take you out and tell you about bush tucker and bush medicine. We all camp out and you cook dinner for us.’ Susie spoke as if this was an everyday event.
‘Really?’ She glanced at Flynn for confirmation. He’d walked over to her whiteboard, which actually looked yellow due to the number of sticky notes stuck to it.
He turned back from reading the board and gave her a knowing smile. ‘Really.’
A strand of unease started to vibrate inside her, and she had an overwhelming feeling she was on the outside of an ‘in’ joke. ‘Hang on a minute, let me get this straight. During the day, you collect the food for me to cook that night?’
‘No, you have to gather or catch food first.’ Susie grinned cheekily. ‘But I can light the fire for you.’
Visions of being very hungry stamped themselves all over her brain. ‘Do I have to build my own bark humpy as well?’
Jenny giggled. ‘No, we use tents.’
The two health workers ambled off to give their community the latest news of Jai.
She slapped the sticky note about the fete onto her whiteboard and turned to see Flynn studying her, his expression uncharacteristically serious. ‘What do you know about this?’
‘It’s something they do when they like you.’
She chuckled with scepticism. ‘What, take me out into the bush and leave me to starve?’
His sober look vanished with a wink. ‘You’ll only starve if you’re lousy at fishing or a bad spear thrower.’
Laughter bubbled up, bringing with it a sensation of pure joy. ‘Thank you so much. That information is very reassuring.’
‘It’s a great opportunity to experience some Kirri culture.’
She knew it would be. ‘I’m really honoured I’ve been asked even if I am going to be hungry.’ She sat down on the edge of the desk, catching the scent of his aftershave and enjoying the freshness of the citrus tang. ‘I kind of like the idea of a women-only camp, sitting around the fire talking about some of the common issues that are faced by women around the world.’
He leaned back, his fingers lacing behind his head, and his hair shone like jet in the stream of sunshine coming through the window. As he stretched, tensed biceps pushed against the soft cotton of his shirt, which rode up, exposing a band of washboard, flat stomach.
Mia gulped in a breath at the sight of toned muscles and sun-tanned skin. Skin that made her fingers tingle and long to touch it.
She quickly grasped her previous and safer train of thought. ‘You know, issues like domestic violence, dealing with a partner with an addiction and parenting issues. Shared stuff like that crosses cultural boundaries and…’ Her voice trailed away as she caught a wicked yet intoxicating glint in his eyes. ‘What?’
His laugh rumbled around her—warm and delicious like hot, chocolate sauce.
‘I hate to disappoint you but I’m coming, too.’
A surge of emotion whipped her but no way could she call it disappointment. ‘Oh, so basically this is a “roast Mia” situation?’ She gave a wry smile. ‘I’m glad I’ll be providing so much entertainment for so many.’
‘You’re good value that way.’ But the words came out on a smile. ‘In fact, seeing as it’s a long weekend and there are no visiting specialists tomorrow, I thought we could head out in an hour or so and get a twenty-four-hour head start. I could give you a few tips so you actually have a chance of finding some food when we meet up with the others tomorrow.’
Flynn and her camping out together. Alone. Her breath caught in her throat. Stop it. He’s just being his normal self and back in teacher mode again. ‘You’d help me cheat?’
He grinned. ‘It’s not cheating, just a bit of advanced information. Besides, it will be fun to see the looks on their faces when you actually present them with a feast.’
‘A feast?’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘You have the skills to help me do that?’
His smile raced through the stubble around his lips, streaked along his cheeks and into his eyes. Eyes filled with the thrill of a challenge. ‘Mia, I have skills and talents you’ve yet to discover.’
And, so help her, she wanted to discover them.
*
Mia couldn’t remember enjoying herself so much as she had in the last few hours. Flynn had taken the meaning of ‘off road’ to new heights, negotiating the four-wheel-drive vehicle around palms and ancient cycads, bouncing it over rocks, and driving it across scorched and blackened earth.
So far she’d eaten green ants, which had an aroma of very strong English mustard but tasted like lemon and were loaded with vitamin C. She’d dipped her finger in ‘sugarbag’, the honey of the native bees, and been told that she could eat all of the waterlily and the stem made a good straw.
Her head was buzzing with information. ‘How can you tell where you are? It all looks pretty much the same to me.’
He gave her an indulgent smile. ‘I used to come out this way a lot when I was a kid. There are some lovely waterholes in the area and it was one of the few places Mum enjoyed.’
She pricked up her ears. Flynn had never mentioned his family much. ‘How long did you live here?’
‘Two years. I was eleven when we arrived.’ He turned the vehicle onto a dirt track. ‘My parents managed the art centre and helped the Kirri find distribution outlets for their art. Mum ma
naged the small island gallery and Dad was mostly involved in the carving side of things.’ His face relaxed as if good memories were coming back to him. ‘It was dad who recognised Walter’s talent and encouraged him to start carving as a career.’
It was one of the few places Mum enjoyed. ‘But your mum didn’t enjoy living here?’
Immediately the muscles in his neck tightened. ‘Mum loved it here for the first six months but, just like the two previous places we’d lived, after the newness wore off she wanted to leave. That’s why each weekend I would ask to come out to this part of the island because when she was here she was happier. We’d sit on the top of the bright red cliffs and watch the dugong play, and I’d ask her not to leave.’
Her heart tore for the young Flynn. ‘And it worked? She stuck it out for two years?’ Mia held onto the handle over the door to steady herself as the truck hit a huge pothole.
Flynn crashed through the gears with more force than necessary. ‘She left the day after my thirteenth birthday. She took me south to Brisbane, dropped me off at boarding school, arranged to meet me in two weeks then kissed me goodbye and left me.’
Left me. ‘Until the arranged meeting?’
‘No.’ His expression hardened. ‘I waited three hours for her in a shopping mall, as planned. She never showed. When I rang Dad he had no idea she’d left him, he thought she was on two weeks’ holidays but, in fact, she’d left us both.’ He swung the wheel hard right, just missing a wallaby that had jumped out in front of them. ‘We didn’t hear a thing for six months and then she sent me a letter saying she was living in San Francisco with an American artist she’d met in Melbourne.’
Her stomach rolled at the emotional pain he must have experienced as he wondered why his mother had vanished. ‘So you visited in the holidays?’ Mia asked the question against the anxiety that a woman who would disappear for six months wasn’t one hundred per cent emotionally well.
He flung her a look of incredulity. ‘Oh, did I forget to mention the part where she said she needed to divest herself of her past, so she could finally find the happiness that had eluded her all her life?’
She stifled a gasp. She couldn’t imagine a mother ever inferring that their child wasn’t one of the greatest joys of their life. And do it to a thirteen-year-old who would be battling his own hormonal demons. ‘She must have been depressed.’
He pulled the truck to a stop under a large pandanus palm. ‘Perhaps. At thirteen I didn’t have the clinical skills to make an accurate diagnosis.’ The sharp tone in his voice revealed his hurt. ‘At thirty I had the skills and I know Brooke wasn’t depressed. She left of her own free will, just like my mother, with no note and no warning. There’s something about the Harrington men that makes women leave.’
She couldn’t believe he’d said that. ‘That’s utter nonsense.’ Her words rushed out fervently. ‘You had a go at me about fate and yet here you are taking two unrelated incidents and trying to connect them. A woman who loves you stays with you. Brooke didn’t love you.’
Hazel eyes sparked with antagonism. ‘And my mother?’
His words hit her hard and fast like a cricket ball in a head-high full toss. She didn’t have an easy answer to his question but viscerally she knew that his interpretation was very wrong.
She opened her mouth to speak but Flynn had opened his door and was moving out of the truck, running as if he was competing in the one hundred-metre sprint.
Had he left to stop the conversation? She wasn’t certain but then she saw a flash of movement and realised he was chasing something. She grabbed her camera and started to jog after him, giving thanks for the fifth time that day that she was wearing sturdy hiking boots, as this was snake country.
He suddenly stopped, his hands on his thighs, his chest heaving. He caught his breath and grinned at her. ‘Bandicoot. Man, they can move fast.’
‘I couldn’t even see it! Surely there are slower-moving things for dinner.’ She glanced around, still feeling like an alien on another planet.
He straightened up, running the back of his hand across his brow. ‘You have to tune into your senses, Mia. I think you’ve forgotten how to do that. Sticky notes don’t work out here.’
She caught a fleeting look of disapproval but let the comment pass. ‘So eyes, ears and nose.’
He nodded. ‘That’s right. Let’s look around here for starters.’ He pointed to his left. ‘See that gumtree with the bright orange flowers? Those flowers mean that it’s time to start burning the land. When they burn it sends the wildlife scurrying so that’s good hunting. Then six weeks later, when the new shoots start, the wildlife comes back to feed on the succulents.’
She started to follow his line of thinking. ‘And there’s no protective vegetation so they’re easy to spot so easier to hunt.’
His eyes flashed approvingly. ‘Excellent deduction, Ms Latham.’ He draped his arm casually around her shoulder. ‘See, you really don’t need to write everything down. You have an incisive mind, you just need to trust it.’
She looked into eyes filled with support and good intentions and her heart turned over.
Trust won’t help stop a genetically predetermined deterioration. She pushed the thought aside. Today she refused to think about her future or more realistically her lack of a future. And she wasn’t thinking about the past either. Today she was living for the moment out in the Kirra bush with the most fascinating man she’d ever met. ‘What’s that spindly-looking sapling with the lone yellow flower?’
‘Kapok.’
‘Really, as in the white fluffy stuff that used to be in pillows?’
‘That’s right. This tree tells a big story, too. When the kapok flowers it means the crocodiles and turtles are laying their eggs, and the kangaroos are plump and healthy and make good tucker.’
Mia shuddered at the thought of crocodiles. ‘As I couldn’t ever throw a javelin, I doubt kangaroo will be on the menu.’
Flynn laughed. ‘On Kirra hunting is still a really important part of community life but they’re not averse to using a rifle when it suits them.’
His arm still lingered on her shoulder as he turned and gently steered her toward the truck. ‘But if we’re going to be traditional, as the man I do the hunting and you do the gathering.’
She raised her brows. ‘Is that so?’
The flirting glint was back. ‘Absolutely, and I’ve got a special place in mind.’
She stopped and in mock indignation she folded her arms across her chest, enjoying their banter. ‘Had I known I would have brought my bark basket with me.’
‘Not to worry. I have a plastic bucket in the back of the truck.’ He quickly ran and grabbed the vivid yellow bucket.
She shook her head in amazement at the lurid colour. ‘Obviously we don’t need to be camouflaged. I bet you could probably see that bucket on a satellite picture.’
Dimples appeared in his cheeks. ‘Crocodiles like a bright colour.’
Fear gushed through her, draining the blood from her face. Snakes she could handle but the thought of the prehistoric creatures that could move with such deathly speed terrified her.
‘Hey.’ His fingers suddenly brushed her chin, tilting it upward. He spoke softly. ‘I’m joking. I’d never put you into danger.’
She gazed into eyes dark with remorse, dusky with care and light with something else she couldn’t quite pin down.
He had so much care to give. He deserved to find a woman who would stay with him and love him.
Caught in his penetrating gaze it was almost all she could do to nod her understanding but she somehow managed to find her voice. ‘Sorry. I know you wouldn’t put us in peril—it’s just that I have this thing about crocodiles.’
‘Most of us do.’ He dropped his fingers from her chin, caught her hand in his and together they started walking.
‘Kirra has salt-water crocodiles in the ocean and strolls along the water’s edge are out. But there are no crocodiles in this area and when I got perm
ission from the traditional owners to bring you out here, I checked again.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re most welcome.’
His smile sent quivering trails of delight through her and she squeezed his hand in appreciation, loving the feel of his palm against hers.
The bush got thicker and he dropped her hand, needing both arms to bush-bash and hold up branches so she could duck under them. She followed behind, admiring his athleticism and the way his shorts moved across what she imagined was a taut behind.
‘Ooh-h.’ Her foot suddenly sank up to her ankles into blue-grey mud and she swung her head around, taking in her environs. She’d been so busy being gloriously distracted by Flynn that she hadn’t noticed the change in vegetation. Low spindly trees with bright green leaves and exposed roots surrounded her.
‘Mangroves.’ She lifted her foot up with a sucking squelch and tried to stand on a large root. ‘We’re gathering food in mangroves?’ She couldn’t hide her disbelief.
His eyes twinkled. ‘Nature’s nursery. Come on, there’s some fabulous food here.’ He strode off, oblivious to the mud, a man on a mission.
She gingerly took another step, which sent mud flicking onto her calves before her feet immediately disappeared into more mud. She stepped carefully again but still mud splattered her legs.
It’s only mud. Live for the moment—you don’t know how long you’ve got.
Flynn, now twenty metres ahead, turned and gave her a wave and a smile. A smile with a magnetic force field that encircled her, pulling her toward him.
She plunged her feet into the mud and waded, closing the distance between them.
He squatted down. ‘This is what you’re looking for as you walk.’ He ran his finger along criss-crossing trails in the mud before digging down under the roots of the mangrove. A moment later he triumphantly held aloft a large black shell.