by Sarah Barrie
Ella almost laughed. “Trust me when I tell you that’s an illusion.”
“It’s a good one.” She sniffed.
“Well, I work hard at it.”
Lexi looked up, caught Ella’s grin and mirrored it. She played nervously with the tissue in her hands. “You’re scary…like that, but you’re not really, are you? Because you’re really a nice person.”
Ryan cleared his throat to interrupt. “Yeah, but it’s a big secret. You’re now one of the chosen but you can’t tell anyone.”
On impulse, Ella threw her cushion at him. He caught it, eyes sparkling. Lexi’s eyes widened in disbelief. “I don’t know anyone who would have done what you did. Just the fact you marched down there and stood up to them – ordered them around like that.”
“Now that part I can believe,” Ryan muttered.
Lexi looked at Ryan. “But then he said how about he put his hands on her instead of me and I thought she’d run for sure and Ella’s like ‘how about you just try that?’ then she sends him flying back into his seat with this awesome elbow right in his face…she wasn’t even scared.”
“Yes, I was,” Ella admitted quietly. “If you’re not a little bit scared, if you’re over-confident, that’s when things go wrong.”
“How did you know you could beat them?”
“I didn’t.”
“I don’t know how to thank you. I’m so sorry this happened.”
“I’m not,” Ella replied firmly. “I’ve been in a bitch of a mood all evening and I got to take it out on a couple of idiotic drunken morons. Added to that, we’re not upset with each other anymore.”
Lexi frowned. “You could have had me fired today. You threatened to take apart my career, but you didn’t.”
Ryan mumbled something. Both women glanced at him, then forgot him again.
“Reece told me…”
“Whoa!” Ella snapped, stiffening. “Reece Bailey?”
“Yeah. I was on crew for her South America doc. Man; she’s got this weird love-hate relationship thing going on with you. That’s where I got my initial impression of you, why I was so quick to jump to conclusions about you.”
Ella shook her head. “Reece Bailey doesn’t have any kind of relationship with me.”
“One minute she would be talking about how much fun you two used to have together and how you taught her all this stuff and introduced her to everyone, the next she’s on about how you just cut her off, how stuck-up and self-absorbed and bitchy you are. How you knocked her out over some guy.”
“Did she give you any details?” Ryan asked enthusiastically.
“Reece is a great storyteller, Lexi. But you can’t believe everything she says,” Ella replied, glaring briefly at Ryan.
“She really hates you.”
“Don’t worry about Reece,” Ella replied. “What you need to do is go get a good night’s sleep. You’ve had a traumatic evening and we’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
“I’m pretty tired. Thanks Ella.”
Ella looked at Ryan. “Maybe you’d…”
“Sure, come on Lexi, I’ll walk you back.” He gestured for Lexi to go ahead and ran a finger down Ella’s cheek. “Get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Ella stood for several minutes after they’d disappeared, trying to make sense of the entire, crazy evening. Eventually, with a shake of her head, she closed her door. It was bound to seem less surreal in the morning.
Chapter Eight
By the time the breakfast meeting was over, Ella was developing a very real headache. One more word from Lexi about last night and Ella was going to take the woman out. Lexi had agreed not to press charges against the men involved, on the condition they left the train without a fuss once they reached Alice Springs, but she’d spent every available moment of the last hour and a half telling everyone in great detail of what she termed Ella’s ‘heroics’. It was just too much.
“Ella, wait a second,” Ryan called, just when she thought she’d finally escaped.
“What do you want, Ryan?”
He just grinned. “Let me guess…you’re not exactly enjoying being the hero?”
As she’d been sending him looks of frustration for almost two hours, she knew damn well he had some idea how she felt. “You know, one or other of the staff on this train would have been through that carriage at any moment. She was perfectly safe, really. I should have just…” she sighed, gestured helplessly with her hands. “I feel like I need to have some sort of temper tantrum or something…anything. I can’t stand all this ‘nice’!”
Ryan lifted his brow. “You’re embarrassed.”
“I’m not into gushy,” she muttered, “I can’t deal with gushy.”
“How…nice.”
“Oh hell, there’s that word again. Stop. Stop now.”
He laughed. “You can’t help yourself. Despite your best efforts, your façade, you’re a softie.”
“I am not and never have been, a ‘softie’,” she bit out.
“I beg to differ. When Lexi was all upset and teary last night, you said whatever you thought would make her feel better. Imagine my surprise when the great Ella Jameson admitted she’d been scared.”
“More like optimistically cautious.”
“There, you see. Softie.”
They reached her cabin and she unlocked it, pushed open the door. “I’ll just get my…”
“Who was the guy?”
“What?” startled by the question she stopped what she was doing, glanced up into Ryan’s face.
“You knocked Reece out over some guy. What happened?”
Ella just stood there, surprised that she couldn’t seem to form the words to brush off the question. When she didn’t answer he stepped forward and took her by the arms. “Tough question?”
She rolled her shoulders and stepped back, started frantically gathering her things and shoving them into a stack. “If we’re going to get through this before we reach Alice Springs we’d better…”
“Stop.”
“We’re going to need to get a move on.”
“Stop.” This time he turned her around and refused to let go. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t. Could you let me go, please?”
“And you can stop that too. You might not like it but I’m a couple of walls in and the rest are easier to see through. Now I can find out. I can do some digging around and find out myself but I’d like you to tell me – what happened between you and Reece and who was he?”
She could continue to refuse to tell him, but that would make it all too important. So she took a steadying breath, threw her arms in the air and sat heavily on the bed. “Reece…God. I met Reece while I was in London seven years ago. I’d just landed a contract to do a series of articles on the best motels in Europe and she approached me and asked if she could tag along. She was starting out and offered to put in some free grunt hours if I’d take some time to help her with her writing along the way. To be honest, I had so much going on at that point I was grateful. So I told her if she would do some research for me I’d take her on as a paid assistant. She was eager to learn and to give her credit, she worked hard. I helped her with her writing, I helped her get published. I introduced her to everyone I could and kick-started her career.”
“Softie,” he teased.
“Add stupid to that, would you? Because she started getting clingy. She started dressing like me, talking like me, copying everything I did.” She rubbed her fingers over her brow, closed her eyes. Hell, she really didn’t want to go through all this. “I was seeing a guy called Conner Rankin.”
“Wait…I know that name.”
“I’m sure you do – CNN – anyway…I’d met him in Los Angeles and we’d been together for a few months. He was – is – a political reporter and the first man I’d ever really cared very much about. He followed me to London and right away, Reece started attaching herself to him, too.”
“She wanted what
you had, wanted to be you.”
“Yes. Anyway, long story short I got home one day and found them in bed together.”
“Is that when you hit her?”
“No. With much restraint I informed them that I wished them everything they deserved, and I left them to it.”
“Trust you, but…must have hurt.”
“I’d convinced myself I was in love with him and that made me blind and stupid. Looking back I should have seen it much sooner.”
“That’s a bit harsh.”
“It’s accurate. But not finished. I walked out, left them to it. When I got back, they were gone. So was my laptop with all my work on it. Everything. Reece didn’t just steal a story, she stole my boyfriend, six months’ worth of research and with it, my European Motels contract. She got that contract by submitting my articles and having them published under her own name. With any evidence gone that they were ever mine, I had no comeback and no time to start again.”
Ryan swore and shook his head. “That explains a lot. So then you hit her?”
“No. About four months later I was having lunch with the editor of a women’s magazine over there. Lisa mentioned some of her columnists were complaining they were losing articles – they’d been pulled completely from their server. I jokingly asked if she knew a Reece Bailey and it turned out Reece was interning there. Nothing was ever proven but a bit of digging revealed some astonishingly similar articles had appeared in other publications under Reece’s name. She was fired.
The day she came in to get her stuff I was in Lisa’s office, discussing a few possibilities for her travel section and Reece put two and two together. She stormed in like a lunatic and the things that came out of her mouth I won’t repeat, but when I didn’t bite, she took a swing. Self-defence all the way, of course, I right-crossed her and she hit the floor like a stone.”
“You knocked her out cold?”
“Would you stop focusing on that? Ok, yes. Broke my knuckle though.”
Ryan was grinning from ear to ear. “This doesn’t gel with your image at all.”
“That’s fortunate, though the way Lexi’s spouting off, probably temporary. Ryan, we should really get this work done. Hannah will want to go over it with us.”
“You loved this Connor guy?”
She took a deep breath, released it. “I – probably did. I think I did. That’s why I stuffed everything up. I don’t do relationships. At least not well. But that was the first real attempt I’d made. I thought we had something. We didn’t.”
He frowned, puzzled. “You didn’t stuff up. Connor did. He slept with Reece when he had you. He must have been mad.”
“I should have realised something was going on and I didn’t. Had I called them on it sooner or just not walked out and left them in my apartment, Reece couldn’t have stolen my computer. There are always consequences for letting your emotions get in the way.”
Ryan studied her with a frown. “What is this, Vincent Jameson 101?”
“You asked, I told you. End of story. Alice Springs?” She picked up her notes and her face was immediately composed, businesslike.
He sent her a long look. “That’s seriously impressive – the way you wall up like that.”
“Uh huh. Alice Springs?” she repeated.
“Alright,” he agreed, “Alice Springs…” He shuffled some notes around, found what he was looking for, quickly studied her features again and found them set. “I’m flying out to Uluru and Kata Tjuta. You’re covering the Royal Flying Doctor Service, National Pioneer Women's Hall of Fame, Telegraph Station, Reptile Centre and Anzac Hill. No more than five minutes footage on each – it’s a just a mention really. You’re only going to have about thirty minutes at each stop. You need to be back here by six.”
Ella nodded. “All good, except the Reptile Centre…do I really need to do it? I’m not great with animals.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“No, really – I don’t do reptiles. If you want me to do a good story, you don’t want me anywhere near anything slimy with teeth.”
“Ella, you don’t have to touch anything…though it might be good television.”
“Ryan…I’ll freak out.”
“What if you do?”
“Cameras.”
“That means you can’t freak out?”
“Of course it does! I’m supposed to be…”
“Perfect? Ella, if you freak out, no doubt a good half of our audience will freak out with you. They’ll love it.”
“Meanwhile you’ll head off on a camel and find a nice king brown to cuddle up to.”
He shrugged and grinned. “It’ll make for a good contrast.”
“Just don’t get bitten.”
His eyebrows shot up at that. “You’re worried about me?”
“I’m worried I’ll have to fill in for you if you do something stupid. And I’ve seen your plans for Katherine Gorge.”
He grinned. “You could come up in the helicopter with me.”
“At least there’ll be no crocodiles up there.”
“You’re scared of crocodiles?”
“I…have a healthy respect for them. And I watched Lake Placid. I should never have watched Lake Placid.”
She liked his laugh. It was open and deep and contagious. “There’s a croc farm in Darwin. We could visit, let you play with the babies; introduce you gradually.”
“No thank you. I’m way too attached to my toes. And I’d like them to stay attached to me.”
“What animals do you like?”
“I like them all…from a distance. Can we do this?” she indicated the work in front of her.
He leant forward, kissed her on the mouth, startling her. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s that officious tone of yours. It’s a killer. Continue.”
“My… I wish I could figure you out,” she muttered, earning another grin.
Ella spent most of her day rushing from place to place, catching glimpses of Alice Springs as she went from tourist location to tourist location. Together with Hannah, Jill, Lexi and Marco, she’d toured the Royal Flying Doctors Service, the National Pioneer Women’s Hall of Fame, the Telegraph Station, Anzac Hill and the dreaded Reptile Centre. Now they wandered down one of the main streets, looking for just the right café to take a break, filling in the small amount of time they had left before heading back to the train.
She looked around as they walked, enjoying the town. Alice Springs was a fascinating mix of old and new architecture, she decided, with an interesting blend of Aboriginal and European influences. Of course, tourism was the obvious glue, and everywhere there were motels, restaurants and pubs.
“Hey look,” Marco pointed to a shop across the road. “Tourist shop.”
“You mean another one?” Lexi replied dryly.
Marco grinned ruefully. “I promised the nieces and nephews I’d pick them up something while I was out here.”
“Well, here’s a coffee shop,” Hannah said. “Why don’t you drop the equipment down here by the table and head on over. We’ll order you something.”
“Great, thanks.” As he jogged across the road, the women ordered coffees and snacks, and sat back in their seats, watching the goings on around them.
“It’s so nice here,” Jill commented, “There’s something so fun and friendly and busy about this place right out here in the middle of Australia – in the middle of nowhere.”
“It’s a shame we don’t have more time to explore,” Ella agreed. “I’ve travelled all over the world and never visited half of Australia. There’s so much to see.”
“It’s easy to take for granted what’s in your own backyard,” Hannah said, “overseas always sounds so exciting.”
“As long as Ryan’s happy to keep doing the hard stuff, I’m looking forward to more of it,” Ella agreed.
“He loves every second of the crazy bits,” Hannah replied. “He’s fearless.”
“You two are a good fit that way,” Jill agreed, “you’re both so
differently oriented that we can cover so many places from so many different angles.”
“Differently oriented? That’s a good way of putting it.” Ella replied, amused.
“That’s not quite how he put it in his blog,” Lexi commented, wiggling her eyebrows.
“Oh?” Ella straightened. “What did he say?”
“Nothing insulting,” Hannah reassured her, “he’s just building hype for the show.”
“Wait a sec,” Lexi dug out her tablet, “I’ll find it now, prove it to you.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“Ok…” Lexi pushed a few keys, scrolled, then looked up at Ella with a wicked grin. “And I quote, ‘for those of you who somehow managed to miss my blog, the news and the article in TV Today, I’ll be working with the super-sexy Ella Jameson. You’ve all heard of Ella Jameson – you’ve read her unforgettable articles, but just wait until you see her on camera. She’s gorgeous, energising, feisty and ultra-watchable. She also happens to think I’m a lunatic. It should make for some interesting travelling. Wish me luck.’”
Ella pulled a face. “I’m not sure whether to be complimented or insulted.”
Lexi giggled. “There’s a comment down the bottom from one of his fans that says ‘I’ve seen Ella Jameson in the flesh and have to say; you could film the entire series in your lounge room… if she was in the shot, I’d watch it. Clever casting Edwards.’ Ryan’s given it a thumbs up.”
“Well, really. Men.”
Hannah laughed. “There is some on-camera chemistry between you two.”
Ella paled. “Don’t be ridiculous, we’ve only shot a small amount of footage.”
“Yeah but it comes through.”
“Off screen too.” Jill replied with a sly smile.
“Actually I was wondering when I came into your cabin last night to apologise if maybe I was interrupting something,” Lexi added.
“No.” Ella replied firmly. “You were not.”
Lexi flinched dramatically and laughed. “Ok, don’t do scary Ella again – I’m one of the chosen, remember?”