The Australians' Brides: The Runaway and the Cattleman

“Why, Josh?” Carly asked seriously.

“Because anything else would be eating me alive.”

“Eww! Yeah! Alive! Are you listening, yabbies?” Carly spoke seriously to the scrabbling contents of the red bucket. “We’re nice, kind humans. We’re not going to eat you alive.”

Which seemed to deal with the whole too cute issue, thank goodness.

Ten minutes later, Carly was eating a hot yabby sandwich, with butter, pepper and salt.

Jac ate one, too, and it sure tasted good. “This is one of those moments when I blink and shake my head and can’t believe I’m here,” she told Callan, hard on the heels of the last mouthful, her lips still tasting of butter and salt.

“Yeah?” Callan waved pungent blue smoke away from his face.

He had a blackened and very rickety wire grill balanced on the stones over a heap of coals. It looked as if someone had fashioned it out of old fencing wire, but it held the lamb chops and sausages just fine, and they smelled even better than the yabby sandwich had tasted.

In a little pan, also blackened, he had onions frying in the froth from half a can of beer. The other half of the can he drank in occasional satisfied gulps, while Jacinda sipped on a mug of hot tea.

“I’ve just eaten something that a week ago I’d never even heard of,” she said. “I’ve swum in terrifying water, chock-full of bunyips. I’ve let you tell me about snakes in the house without screaming.”

“I noticed you didn’t scream.” He gave her his usual grin. “I was impressed.”

“Thank you. Meanwhile, there’s a road faintly visible over there that you claim leads eventually to Adelaide, but there hasn’t been a car on it since we got here, what, an hour ago? In fact, have I seen or heard a car since Tuesday? I don’t think so.”

“There have been cars.”

“I haven’t noticed them. I’ve been too busy. It’s incredible here. Carly is—Carly will—I hope Carly never forgets this. It’s going to change who she is.”

And “Carly” is code for “Carly and me.”

It’s going to change who I am, even more, but there are limits to my new yelling-and-jumping-induced bravery, and I’m not prepared to say that out loud.

“Wouldn’t be surprised if it changes the boys, too,” Callan answered.

He flipped a couple of lamb chops with a pair of tarnished tongs, drained the last of the beer and looked at her with those steady blue eyes, and she suspected … decided … hoped … that “the boys” was code, also.

Chapter Six

“Dad?” Through a fog of steam, the bathroom door clicked shut behind the new arrival.

“What’s up, Lockie?”

“Can I talk to you for a sec?” The tone was reluctant, yet confiding.

“Can’t it wait until I’m done in the shower?” Callan had been caught this way by Lockie before.

His evening shower was one of the few intervals in his day that was both relaxing and private, and maybe that was why Lockie came looking for him here. He knew the two of them wouldn’t be disturbed by Josh or Gran or the dogs or, tonight, Carly or her mother.

The shower ran on bore water from deep in the ground, which meant it was as hard as nails but hot and steamy and in plentiful supply. Conserving water was deeply bred into anyone who lived beyond Australia’s coastal fringe, but four minutes of steamy peace per day was, surely, not too much to ask.

Apparently, yes.

“Well, you see, the thing is …” Lockie trailed off. The reluctance had increased.

Callan sighed and surrendered his peace, realizing he wasn’t dealing with a mere request for homework intervention or a new computer game, here. “Go ahead, spit it out.”

“You know when we were at the water hole today?”

“I have a faint memory of something like that, yes, even though it’s been a whole four hours since we left the place.”

Out it came in a sudden rush. “I left my Game Boy behind on a rock.”

“You what?” Callan shut off the water and reached around the edge of the shower curtain for his towel. “You brought your Game Boy down there? Why?”

“In case I got bored.”

“But you didn’t get bored. I didn’t even see you with it.”

“I got it out after we stopped yabbying, but then we had lunch and I forgot about it and I left it and I only remembered it now.”

“Right.”

“Sorry, Dad.”

“What do you think we should do about it?” He wrapped the towel around his waist and slid the shower curtain aside, confronting his son.

He was strict about this kind of thing, and Lockie knew it. The boys were good, usually. Callan had trained them that way. They always left a gate the way they found it. They did a job, then put their tools away. They didn’t leave feed bags open to attract vermin, or riding gear lying around to get its leather cracked in the sun.

“I think I should go back first thing in the morning and get it,” Lockie said. “Like, very, very first thing.”

“I think you’re right,” Callan said. “And I think you know I’m not happy about this. How long did you have to save up your pocket money to buy that thing? A year?”

“I’m not happy about it, either.”

It was almost fully dark out, now, and they were just about to eat. Mum had cooked something special, the way she often did on a Saturday or Sunday. Smelled like lasagna and garlic bread, and the kids had already discovered and reported that there would be hot peach cake and ice cream for dessert.

Callan was hungry. He’d been up since five-thirty this morning. He didn’t want to have to stir from the house again tonight.

“Is it going to be safe on a rock all night?” Lockie asked him.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m wondering. What do you think?”

“If dew gets in it, or a ’roo knocks it off, or a cow steps on it, it could get destroyed.”

“All those things are possible.”

“So maybe I should go now,” Lockie said.

“No, Lockie.” Callan sighed. He wasn’t going to send a ten-year-old out alone on horseback or a quad bike after dark, on the tail of a long day. “We’ll eat, and then I’ll go.”