Runaway to the Outback

by Nicole Flockton

Pandora disappeared out the door before he could tell her that it really didn’t matter. But on the slim chance that there were suitable walking shoes in the bag, he quickly finished wiping the bottles and the bar top. Tomorrow was Sunday and, like Saturdays, one of his busiest days. So he really should go to bed instead of going for a walk, but he couldn’t take his invitation back now.

  No, he didn’t want to take it back. He could sleep a little later on Monday. Mondays were always one of his quietest days. Everyone was slow to get going after the weekend. He opened late and closed early the first day of the working week.

  “Success.” Pandora bounced into the room. He noticed that she’d changed into some leggings. While he lamented the loss of the view he had of her legs in the shorts, he couldn’t deny the fabric of her pants hugged her legs in all the right ways. “Your sister thought of everything.” She lifted her foot to show it encased in a white sneaker that looked brand new. But that couldn’t be right, Sindy wouldn’t have gone and purchased Pandora shoes when she knew she was only likely to stay one night and not wear them, would she? Although his sister did say word had gotten around about Pandora being in town and needing clothes so it wouldn’t surprise him if most of the items in the bag were new and from the co-op store.

  Looked like they were going for a walk. He could keep his distance as well as stop himself from trying to see if she needed more help with her situation. “Great, let me grab my phone and then we’ll be off. Do you want a bottle of water to take with you?”

  “Sure, that sounds great.”

  A few minutes later, water bottles in hand, they headed out. The moon was high in the sky and provided enough light to guide them as they walked through town. Jonas had a flashlight in his pocket, a small but powerful one, if they needed it. He headed toward the park in the middle of town.

  The musical tones of the crickets serenading each other was their companion as they walked along the sidewalk.

  “I noticed you didn’t lock the pub. Should you have?” Pandora asked after they’d been walking for a little while.

  “Nah, no one’s going to break into it.”

  “How can you be sure? I mean there could be anyone lurking around in the dark, waiting for you to leave so they can help themselves to some alcohol. You know, maybe some teenagers who want to experiment and see what liquor tastes like.”

  Jonas laughed, he couldn’t help himself. “The town isn’t a hotbed of crime. Although a few months back we did have some kids who were doing some sort of exchange program who decided to get drunk. Sindy and Ryan ran into them, but they spent the night at the police station.”

  “See, what if there’s another lot of students who are visiting? You really should’ve locked the door, Jonas.”

  She seemed quite adamant that he should’ve kept his pub safe. Jonas rested his hand briefly on her shoulder and squeezed. What was he doing? He was keeping his distance. He quickly dropped his arm by his side. “Trust me, it’ll be fine.”

  “I can’t get used to the quiet,” she said after a while. “I mean sure, there are night sounds, but after living in the city I’m used to the hum of traffic zooming by my apartment all day and night. The occasional blast of a horn as well as the wail of sirens. All this quiet is a little unsettling.”

  “It does take some time to get used to, for sure. It works both ways, too. If you’ve grown up in the country, moving to the city and hearing everything you listed on a constant basis can be unsettling.”

  “You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

  “Yeah, I moved to Melbourne for university. Stayed there for almost ten years. Then I moved back here and took over the pub.”

  His time in Melbourne had served him well, but after nearly a decade of living there, he craved the simplicity of life that Bunya Junction offered. Most of the people he thought of as his friends were sure he’d lost his mind, when he announced he was giving up his successful career and moving back to the ‘middle of nowhere’ as most of them called his hometown.

  His girlfriend at the time, Gina, had initially been supportive of the move, but he found out later that she thought he was only joking. When she’d worked out he was serious, she’d walked. She couldn’t imagine living in the country. He couldn’t fix that about her and well, he didn’t even try to.

  “Did you work in the hospitality industry in Melbourne?”

  They were at the park, so he cupped Pandora’s elbow and steered her toward a bench situated under a huge ghost gum tree. The moonlight brightened its grey bark until it was almost white, the tree living up to its ghostly name. The Bunya pines that bordered the park stood like dark bodyguards.

  He sat and gazed up at the dark sky, picking out the Southern Cross constellation. “I did some bar work to earn extra cash while I completed my business degree.” He responded to her question. “Once I started full-time work, I quit as I didn’t have time to do both.”

  Pandora lifted her legs and curled them beneath her body, leaning slightly into him. He rested his hand across the back of the metal and wood bench, his fingertips brushed her shoulder lightly. “If you didn’t work in hospitality, where did you work and how did you come to own the pub?”

  He didn’t mind her asking about his life, it’s what most people did when they were getting to know someone. It opened the door for him to ask her about her life, and how long she’d been modelling.

  “I was a stockbroker. I’m not being modest when I say I was a damn good one, too.” Because she was leaning against him, every little shake of her body from her chuckle sent ripples through him, like a stone being thrown in a glassy lake.

  “You really don’t strike me as the ruthless type that is synonymous with trading stocks.”

  “You’d be surprised,” he said lightly. “You’re right, though. To be a stockbroker you have to be unemotional and ruthless. It’s not your money you’re playing with. It’s someone else’s and they’ve entrusted you with their life savings in the hopes you can increase their wealth and retirement funds. You have to approach buying and selling shares as coolly as possible. One false move and your career can end before it’s fully started.”

  “Is that what happened to you? You made a bad investment?”

  He supposed that was the next logical question. “No. All the decisions I made were in my clients’ favour and I made them a lot of money.”

  “So why did you leave?”

  “I’d had enough. I missed home and my family. Plus, it was time. I wanted to come back. The owners of the pub happened to be thinking of retiring and the price was right. I sold everything I had in Melbourne and sunk it all into the pub.”

  Her fingers on the bench brushed his jean-clad thigh. Even through the denim fabric his skin sizzled at the mere touch. “I understand what you mean about having enough of your job. I’m tired.”

  “You’re tired? Do you want to go back? I know you have a long day ahead of you tomorrow, or should I say today, with your drive back to the city.”

  “No. I don’t want to go back. I’m not tired, tired. I’m tired of my life. Of modelling. Of not being able to be myself anymore. I have to be Pandora, the supermodel, wherever I go. I don’t think I want to be her anymore.”

  That was unexpected. He thought for sure she’d want to go back to the pub. There was a hint of rebellion to her voice, as though she was okay walking away and leaving the mess she’d created behind. Would her career suffer for her actions or not?

  “Is that why you left the shoot today? Because you’d had enough?” He held his breath, waiting to see if she’d answer or if she’d put him off.

  “Partly. No, mostly. Plus the photographer was being a dick and I’d had enough. They say models can be divas, and well, some are. But photographers can be right up there too. If they feel like my hair is all wrong they’ll ask the hair stylist to redo it, which also leads to having to get makeup redone because it doesn’t suit the look. Then the shoot runs late and the photographer ends up blaming the mod
el when it’s all his fault to start with.”

  She sounded more defiant talking about the photographer, which made him wonder if today was the first time she’d walked away or she’d done it before. “It always looks so glamorous. Like you don’t have a care in the world. Flying from one exotic location to another.”

  “Oh, trust me, it can be. Very glamorous and exciting. But it’s hard work. All you and everyone else sees is the end product. You don’t see that it takes hours to get that one perfect shot. Not to mention how stressful it is having to watch what you eat. Make sure you exercise regularly. As well as the pressure of getting older meaning you’ll lose your looks or you’ll start paying to have plastic surgery to prolong your career.”

  He gave in to the desire to touch her and wrapped her in his arms, hugging her close. Going against everything he mentally told himself, like keeping his distance. She was only there for one night. And no matter what he may think about how she handled what she’d done that day, Pandora needed human contact and he could give it to her.

  *

  Pandora had no idea what possessed her to spill her guts to Jonas, telling him how she was feeling with regards to her career. But a weight had been lifted off her shoulders by bringing it out into the open. Sure, she’d told Laura she was tired, but not that she was considering walking away from it all. In fact, the thought hadn’t entered her mind until she sat down and started talking to Jonas. Like he’d said when she first arrived, people unloaded on the local bartender and that’s what she’d just done. Although she didn’t think he went around pulling everyone into a hug like he’d done to her.

  She closed her eyes and wrapped one of her arms across Jonas’s back, sinking further into his warm embrace. Right this second she could let her troubles go and be in the moment. Experience what it would be like to truly have someone who cared for her. As much as she wanted to think Jonas was being genuine, she had to keep her guard up. On top of all the uncertainty with her career, she didn’t want to open herself up to Jonas, only for him to shun her when the paparrazi and her popularity all became too much for him to deal with.

  “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you need to change anything about yourself. You’re beautiful just as you are.”

  “I don’t think I’d ever have surgery. Modelling was never my first career choice. It kind of just happened.” Even some of the girls who were just starting out were getting fillers to make their lips look bigger. Or liposuction to keep their svelte figures. The number of models who got breast augmentations was increasing every year. She was lucky she could maintain her figure through exercise and a good diet.

  “How did modelling happen for you? How long have you been doing it?”

  Pandora sighed. She didn’t want to talk about her life. Yet she’d left herself wide open for questions when she asked Jonas about his career. Not to mention what she’d told him about her current situation. “I was in the second year of getting a business degree. I wasn’t really enjoying the course, but figured I only had a year and half to go, so I should keep going. It’s so clichéd, my story.” She stopped, not wanting to say more.

  “Clichéd as in you were walking down the street and someone saw you and handed you their business card, type of cliché?”

  She chuckled. “Not quite, but close. I was in a coffee shop. I was supposed to be studying for my next exam, but I was gazing out the window. A booker for a big agency saw me. She came up to me and said I was the perfect face for the client she was working with. I looked at her as if she had seven heads. I mean, who comes up to a complete stranger and starts spouting about how my cheekbones were perfection and my look was exactly what she needed?” She closed her eyes and remembered that time. Even now the doubts she had back then about the truthfulness of the situation hit her. “Anyway, I didn’t believe her. But she was persistent and eventually I agreed to meet up with her and the others at the agency after my exam finished. I almost didn’t go, but figured if it was all a hoax, then at least I’d learned a life lesson.”

  “Except it wasn’t a joke and it was all legit and here you are.”

  Pandora grabbed the lifeline Jonas threw her. “Pretty much. That was five years ago. I never did finish my degree, because after that first campaign hit the internet, as well as print media, my career took off. I found Laura, my agent, and then I was getting booked for so many jobs that I didn’t have time to breathe.”

  She shivered when Jonas’s fingers picked up some of her hair and started twirling it. Ever since their first touch, a spark had simmered between them. She didn’t know what to make of it. Her experience with men wasn’t extensive, but over the years since she started modelling she’d been linked with actors, singers and other models. Some had been a simple quid-pro-quo arrangement, where they’d both benefitted from being seen with each other. She’d had relationships where she wondered if this person was her one and only, but after a few months things fizzled out. Somehow she seemed to disappoint them and they walked away without looking back. But none of her past relationships had ever had her skin buzzing from a simple brush of fingers, such as Jonas’s touch elicited. She needed to make sure she didn’t get burned. She should move away, yet she found herself sinking a little further into his embrace.

  “What does your family think of your career? And shit.” Jonas tensed beside her. “Do you need to ring them? Or did you call them after you spoke to your agent?”

  Her parents. She hadn’t thought about them in years. Their abandonment of her had been a shock. They’d been disappointed with her decision to quit university and model full time. They believed she was wasting her time and nothing would come of it. How could their only daughter throw away an education for modelling? They hadn’t even let her get the rest of her things from her old bedroom before they’d changed the locks on the house. She hadn’t seen them since.

  Well, her full bank account and inner-city apartment would prove how wrong they were in their assumptions. “I haven’t spoken to them in a few years. They didn’t like my choice and, well, that’s fine. I’m sure they’ve seen my face everywhere. I’ve graced a lot of billboards and magazine covers. As their only child, I figure they’re proud of me in their own way. No doubt they’d be bragging to their friends about my success. Of course, they’d be making it seem like I’m the one who cut the ties because I got too famous, not the other way around.”

  There were so many times she’d wanted to talk to her mum. Ask her advice, or just talk to her about little things. But every time she’d picked up the phone and went to dial their number, she always pulled back at the last minute. Maybe one day, after she stopped modelling, she’d call them. Try and fix the relationship. Even after all these years the hurt from their rejection stung.

  Jonas’s arms closed her around her a little tighter. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ve come to accept it. Some days are easier than others.” Pandora appreciated that he didn’t say anything else. Not many knew the full story of her estrangement from her parents. Whenever she had been asked the question in interviews, she always just gave the standard, yes, they were proud of her response. Not really knowing if it was true or not.

  They sat there for a little while longer. Both lost in their own thoughts. Tiredness began to pull at her muscles and after she’d yawned the third time in a row, Jonas pulled away from her. She missed his warmth immediately.

  “I think it’s time we headed back to the pub. Morning will be here before we know it.”

  Pandora stood and stretched. Did Jonas just groan? She looked over to where he stood but found she was looking at his back, his hands were shoved in his jean pockets, pulling the denim tight across his arse. A very nice arse that filled out his jeans well.

  She shook her head, hoping to clear thoughts of Jonas’s backside. She didn’t need to be thinking about a man, not when she had other big decisions to be made.

  The trip back to the pub was short and they were inside the warm building in a matter of minutes
. “Well,” she said as she stood at the bottom of the stairs that led up to her room. “I guess this is goodnight?”

  Jonas closed the short distance between them and her heart rate double-timed it in her chest. Was he going to kiss her? She wouldn’t mind if he did. His hand lifted and she held herself still, holding her breath. He swayed toward her and she leaned in, waiting for the touch of his lips against hers. Only, he stopped himself and instead of his lips touching her, his fingers brushed her cheek and curled a stray lock of her hair behind her ear.

  “What time will you be heading off tomorrow? Or should I say later today?” He put some distance between them and his hands were back in his pockets, as if he was controlling the urge to pull her into his arms.

  The moment of truth was upon her. How was he going to react to what she was about to tell him? “I’m not leaving.”

  His eyes widened and his brow furrowed. “What do you mean, you’re not leaving?”

  “Laura is looking after the fallout from today and will arrange for my personal belongings to be sent here. I’m staying in Bunya Junction for the next couple of weeks.”

  Chapter Five

  Jonas’s feet pounded the pavement as he jogged down the back streets of town. His body protested the exercise, but he ignored the aches and his tiredness. Sleep had been a long time coming; by the time he finally sank into the oblivion of rest, it was time to get up again. Today was going to be a long day.

  After he’d watched Pandora go upstairs, following her announcement that she was staying in town, he’d gone to his house next door and grabbed some clothes for bed. Whenever he had a guest staying at the pub, he usually slept in the small room off the side of his office, in case they needed anything.

  He’d spent far too long staring at the plain white ceiling; her words echoing around his mind. He was surprised that she wanted to stay in their little town.

  What kept sleep at bay was how close he’d come to kissing her. The way she’d leaned forward suggested she wouldn’t have objected if he had, but he’d stopped himself at the last second. Now, knowing that she was staying for longer than the one night, he was glad his good sense had prevailed. All he had to do was remember to keep his distance whenever he was tempted to get close to her. Or the desire to step in and help her with the fallout from what she’d done the previous day.