Red Dirt Heart Read online

  And the way he used his hands when he spoke animatedly was really distracting. His big hands, thick fingers and callused palms… I kept thinking about what they’d feel like on my skin…

  Needing a distraction, I turned to Shelby, suddenly rather interested in her mane. I hadn’t noticed that Travis had stopped talking until he was standing right beside me. “She’s a special horse,” he stated. It wasn’t a question.

  I cleared my throat. “She is.” He waited for me to keep talking, so I did. “I got her when she was just a foal, jeez, it’d be eight years ago. When I was sixteen and seventeen, we were inseparable. She was my best friend. Then I left her for three years and when I came back from Sydney, she came over to me and nudged me right into the fence. I think she was pissed that I left her,” I said with a laugh. “But she forgave me.”

  Like she knew I was talking about her, she nudged me, softly this time.

  Travis chuckled beside me. “I think she likes you.”

  I looked at him and grinned. “She’s saved my hide a few times. Whether it was shying away from snakes or after I’d have a fight with my dad, I’d go sit up at one of my hideouts and she’d nudge me until I took her home.”

  Travis smiled warmly, as though it sounded familiar. “I thought whistling for horses only happened in the movies.”

  I laughed loudly. “Paddocks are pretty big out here.” Then I asked him, “Got a horse back home?”

  “Nah, not really. I mean, we have two horses, but they’re my sisters’. I grew up with one, that’s where I learned to ride, but it’s been a few years. It felt real good to be on this fella,” he said, rubbing the forehead of the bay gelding. “What’s his name?”

  “Never gave him one,” I admitted. “We have a few horses ’round here. He was a bit of a problem one and weren’t sure if he was going on one of the trucks at the end of the muster.”

  “You put me on a problem horse?”

  I laughed at his expression. “Had to see if you could ride.”

  “Gee, thanks,” he said. He rolled his eyes, but smirked.

  “You handled him well.”

  Travis gave the gelding a pat down the neck. “He’s not getting on that truck the week after next.”

  I looked at him surprised. “No?”

  He shook his head. “Nah. Not while I’m here, anyway.”

  I scoffed at his arrogance, but he stared at me. His blue eyes were smiling, challenging.

  “And I get to name him,” he added. Then he frowned, obviously trying to think of a name. “Umm… I can’t think of anything significant.”

  “What about Her Majesty’s Service?” I asked, biting back a smile.

  “Huh?”

  “You know, the British armed forces,” I explained. “Always carrying the Americans.”

  His mouth literally fell open and I burst out laughing, startling the gelding. When I finally stopped laughing, Travis was still staring at me. Well, it was more glaring at me.

  I laughed some more. “Do you get it? The horse carries you, and you’re American.”

  “I get it,” he said. “Just not funny.”

  “It really was. What about James Bond? Or Mi6.”

  Now he rolled his eyes. “How about I call him Texas. Just to peeve you off.”

  I laughed again and clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s perfect! Texas is perfect for this horse. He thinks he’s the biggest too.”

  Travis sighed. “Is it National Pick on the American Day today? ’Cause that weren’t in no travel brochure either.”

  I snorted out a laugh. “I’m just kidding,” I said, clapping him on the arm this time. “I don’t mean nothing by it. It’s just what we do. We take the piss.”

  “Take the piss?”

  “Yeah, make fun of. It wasn’t real nice, sorry.” I kind of felt bad, but it also felt real damn good to laugh. I slipped my foot into the stirrup and climbed back onto Shelby. “We’ll just check the bore farther down this fence line. We’ll need these troughs working well next week.”

  I pulled the reins, turning Shelby out of the shade and down along the fence line. I don’t know why making conversation was so fucking hard or why I struggled so damn pathetically. Now Travis thought I was a jerk, and I was supposed to be his boss. I was supposed to be someone he could depend upon, not someone who took the piss.

  It really was safer for me to just talk work or not talk at all.

  Travis was soon beside me again on the newly named Texas. “We’ll draft the mob into these two paddocks, then section them off again,” I said, getting back to much safer topics. “Bulls into one pen and steers into another pen, females and wieners into the other. We’ll see which of each we’ll keep, which we’ll sell.”

  “You didn’t offend me, you know.”

  I glanced at him. He was smiling that smug half smirk. I cleared my throat and said, “I, uh, I still shouldn’t have said that. And I apologise.”

  “You wanna know what else we have in Texas?” he asked, ignoring my apology. “We have a sense of humour. I mean, they did a pretty thorough strip search at customs, but I’m pretty sure I smuggled mine in.”

  I smiled at that. “Was it bad? Customs, I mean.”

  “Oh, terrible. Questioned for hours, strip searched, cavity searched.”

  My eyes near popped out of my head. “Really?”

  “No,” he answered flatly, but then he laughed.

  I chuckled and shook my head. “Jeez, I thought you were being serious.”

  He grinned and gave a nod toward a water trough we were getting close to. “What number bore is this?” he asked. “What’s your water table like?”

  And just like that, we talked about underground water supplies, both here and where he was from, which led to talk about sustainability and desert living, cultivating every drop of water and irrigation and water harvesting.

  He’d laughed when I said the only irrigation we do out here was once a year, and that we called it the wet season. We spent the entire afternoon walking the fence line, talking and laughing. He told me about his family—he had a brother and two sisters, both parents, who were still married. They did all right on the farm, he said, and he was the second youngest, which was fine with him. It meant all the responsibilities and expectations were on older brother and sister. “They can do the career, marriage, kids thing and I can do whatever I want.”

  “Like spend four weeks in the Outback of Australia?”

  “Exactly,” he said with a grin. Then he asked, “What about your family?”

  I held in a sigh and kept the smile on my face. “Only child,” I said. “I grew up out here.” I looked around at the familiar, ever-changing scenery and where the sun was in the sky. I looked at my watch. “Shit. We’ll be late for dinner. Come on,” I said, quickly jumping back on Shelby. “Ma’s number one rule is don’t be late.”

  Travis was quick to get on Texas, and he mumbled my earlier words. “Be on time, be clean, be grateful.”

  Smiling, I gave Shelby a nudge with my toes, telling her to head for home, and she took off. Travis wasn’t far behind, laughing as he rode. By the time we got back to the homestead, we were both sweating, as were the horses. I jumped off Shelby and quickly undid the girth, pulling the saddle off her and throwing it onto the fence railing. Travis did the same, and we led both horses over to the shade of the shed. I grabbed the hose and wet the horses down and Travis grabbed both saddles and brought them into the shed. “You should go in and get cleaned up for dinner. Ma won’t mind too much if it’s me that’s late.”

  Travis gave me a smile before he took off to the house. I couldn’t help but laugh as he hopped on one foot on the veranda, tryin’ to take his boots off, then disappeared inside.

  I don’t know why he disarmed me so much. He was probably straight for all I knew, and as I knew from past experience, that fantasy never ended well.

  I gave the horses a good hosing, washing the dirt and sweat off them. I left them tied to the fence in the sha
de and went inside.

  I hung my hat on the second hook and saw the hat I’d given to Travis sitting on the hallstand. I ducked in through the door off the hall that led past my bedroom and went straight to the bathroom. Travis wasn’t there, but I could tell he’d been there. There was water over the basin with traces of red dirt swirled to the drain.

  It made me smile.

  I scrubbed up as quick as I could and went back down the hall toward the dining room, but when I got to the door, I could hear them talking.

  “You actually heard him laugh?” someone asked. It sounded like Ernie.

  Then an American accent. “Laugh? He almost busted something he laughed so hard.”

  “Did you fall off your horse?” Trudy asked. “’Cause he finds that funny.”

  I almost didn’t want to go in. I hesitated in the hall just as Ma came out with the bread rolls. “Ooooh, just in time,” she said, pretending to scowl at me. “Quick, in ya go.”

  I walked in and silence fell over the table. It was just as well Ma followed me in. She put the bread on the table and then everyone was eating, so there was no conversation anyway. I could feel Travis’s eyes on me, but I didn’t look at him.

  All through dinner, his gaze burned into me. I could almost feel the questions.

  Why haven’t you ever laughed with them?

  The way you did with me today?

  Why don’t you show them?

  Why do you act different around me?

  “Isn’t that right, Charlie?” Bacon asked.

  “Huh?” I said. I put my fork down on my empty plate, looking at him. “Sorry, I didn’t hear what you said.”

  “This weekend, in the Alice,” he repeated. He was grinning. “Young Travis here was sayin’ he didn’t think he should go. We was just telling him he should; we’ll show him how us Territorians do it.”

  Was it a good idea? Did I want him to go out drinking with these guys for a weekend? Maybe hearing stories of his women conquests might get rid of these ludicrous ideas I had in my head about him.

  I finally looked at Travis. “You should go.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Plan A. And possibly Plan B. There could be a C, depending on how epically I fail at Plans A and B.

  I was up and out of the house before dawn, putting in an hour’s work before breakfast. I told George that Travis was with Trudy, Mick and Billy for the day. Thankfully George’s only response was a hard nod and not the implied innuendos he was full of the day before.

  Fish and Bacon were servicing the dirt bikes, and I kept myself busy under the Land Rover all day.

  I avoided Travis as much as I could without being rude. I was just being professional. The questions I asked myself last night at dinner, and the subsequent answers, were true. I shouldn’t treat him any differently.

  So last night after dinner, I brushed down the two horses and turned them out, then spent an hour or two in my office with the door shut.

  Even at breakfast and lunch, I kept eye contact to a minimum, but smiled so he wouldn’t think he’d done anything wrong.

  Dinner was full of talk about the team’s weekend off, and what they’d do when they got into Alice Springs. I just smiled along with them all, ignoring the quick glances from Travis and the long, drilling looks from George.

  The next morning, as much as I’d tried to distract myself from the blue-eyed American, as I rounded the hall on my way to the bathroom, I ran right into him.

  Literally.

  “Sorry,” I started.

  He had his towel in his hand, his short brown hair still damp; he smelled all shower-clean and of toothpaste-mint. “Oh, hey,” he said, startled. Then he said, “Um, look, if I did something…”

  “What?”

  He swallowed hard. “It’s just you’ve hardly spoken a word to me since the other day. If I crossed a line, I just wanted to say I was sorry—”

  “You haven’t done anything wrong,” I cut him off.

  He stared at me for a long moment, and I had to look away. “Alright then,” he said quietly. “Look, if you don’t want me to go away with the others this weekend—”

  “You should,” I answered quickly. “Go into town. Have some fun.”

  “Charlie?” Ma called from around the hall. “You alive in there?” I took a reflexive step back, away from Travis, toward the bathroom. “Oh, there you are. Always a worry when you’re not under my feet sniffin’ for breakfast.”

  “Just cleanin’ up, Ma,” I said, stepping into the bathroom and closing the door behind me.

  “Right, then,” I heard her say. “Travis, you can set the table for me.”

  “Yes, ma’am” was his reply, and I heard Ma laugh all the way back to her kitchen.

  I stood at the basin and splashed cold water on my face. I needed to get my shit together. Seriously. He’d been here all of four days, and he was all I could think about. His eyes, his accent, the way he laughed, the line of his neck. Jesus, he was the reason I barely slept the last two nights. It was getting ridiculous.

  I scrubbed my hands with soap and told the man in the mirror the same words his father had said.

  “No fucking fairy will run this station. It takes a man’s man to survive out here.”

  I’d said the words out loud before I could stop them.

  Those fucking words.

  I don’t know how, but I’d almost convinced myself I wasn’t the disappointment my father thought I was. After these last two years back on the farm with no prospective guys in a few hundred kilometre radius, I was almost convinced I wasn’t gay or straight or anything. I’d resigned to living a life of solitude, like my father, in the middle of the Outback.

  I splashed more water over my face, avoiding making eye contact with myself in the mirror again. I wiped my face on the towel, and with a reinforced determination, I went out to the dining room.

  I took my seat just as Ma was finishing up serving, with George on one side and Travis on the other. Everyone was excited today; they were heading off in a few hours for their weekend of god-knows-what. I kept my head down, smiling as they talked, and avoided looking at Travis directly.

  I only had to get through breakfast, then he’d be gone for the weekend and I’d be fine. But just before we were all done, Ma stood in the doorway. “Charlie, a word in the kitchen?”

  I suppressed a sigh, and George chuckled beside me. “Boy, what have you done?”

  Without a word, I pushed my chair back and stood up, then walked out of the dining room and into the kitchen.

  Ma was at the sink, but she turned around to face me. Her eyes were soft and kind of sad. “Charlie, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, why?”

  “When I walked into the hall,” she said. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

  “Ma,” I said with a sigh. “It’s not like that.”

  “The look on your face,” she said quietly. “You looked like a scared rabbit, tis all.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I mumbled.

  “You ain’t got nothing to be scared of, ’kay, hun?”

  “Ma,” I said, changing the subject completely, needing this conversation to be over. “When was the last time George took you out for dinner?”

  She was confused for a second, and I could tell the moment she knew our discussion about me was over. “What? You mean pay for someone else to cook? Joseph Brown has never.”

  I smiled at her. “Then you know what? You both should go into Alice with the rest of them. Two nights in a motel, and I’ll tell George you get to pick the restaurants, and I’ll pay for it.”

  She smiled, but then she softened. “You don’t need to send us away. You just need to ask for some alone time.”

  “I’m asking for some alone time,” I admitted. “But I want you and George to enjoy some time away too, okay? You deserve it. You’ve done more for me than anyone else ever has.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes glistened. “Sweet boy,” she said, pulling me in for a hug. Then she st
epped back with wide eyes. “You’re not getting rid of us, are you?”

  I snorted. “I can’t run this place without you. Without either of you. You need to be back on Sunday, okay?”

  Ma smiled at me in that motherly way she does. “What will you do?”

  “The usual.”

  “I meant about our guest.”

  “Nothing,” I answered. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  She sighed. “Are you just going to ignore him until he leaves?”

  “That’s plan A, yes,” I admitted and then thankfully was saved by George appearing in the doorway. “George! Just the man I wanted to see. I’m giving you and Ma the weekend off. I’ll book you into some fancy motel, and you can take your girl out for dinner. Let someone else cook for her for a change.”

  George blinked. Then he blinked again. “Uh…”

  “It’s settled,” I told them. “I’ll find you a nice place to stay and pay for it over the phone. You just need to go get packed.”

  George looked at Ma, then back to me. “Did I miss something?”

  “Nothing you need to worry yourself about,” Ma told him. “Just finish up your chores already.” She started to lecture him about what to pack, what not to pack, then to just forget packing altogether; it’d be better left to her. That was my cue. I clapped him on the shoulder as I walked out, and I could feel his eyes burning holes into the back of my head until I walked outside.

  I spent the rest of the morning, until they all left, implementing plan A.

  * * * *

  The house was quiet. It hadn’t been this quiet since I arrived back here for my father’s funeral. There really hadn’t been a time since then that there hadn’t been someone else here, usually Ma or George, or any of my workers. Sure, I had enough time by myself when I was out checking fences or bores and most nights when Ma and George had gone to bed. But this was two whole days with the nearest human being was a few hundred kilometres away.