Driving Her Crazy (7 page)

‘What happened?’

She twined a finger into her hair.
I met Leo
. ‘I wasn’t really that talented.’ She shrugged. ‘I dropped out.’

Became someone else’s muse instead.

Kent frowned at her nonchalance. There was a hell of a lot more to that story!

None of which he wanted to know.

‘So you became a journo? A bit different from painting, surely?’

‘Not really. I paint my pictures with words now. I like it. I like the facts of it, the clearly defined boundaries. Art is all about interpretation. You must know that,’ she said dismissively, looking up at him. ‘Reporting deals in definites, in absolutes. I like the structure.’

She did. She really did.

Art for her had been a double-edged sword. So tied in with her emotions, her well-being, it had been hard to separate out. It had felt like possession.

Which was, as Leo had pointed out, insane when her talent didn’t justify it.

It had certainly destroyed her relationship with him.

‘Don’t you miss the creativity?’

Sadie shook her head. ‘Words are creative,’ she countered.

Kent shot her a
come-on-now
look. ‘You know what I mean.’ He’d thought for a long time he never wanted to get behind a camera again, but the urge had returned with gusto.

Sadie sighed, fixing her gaze on distant hills. ‘Painting took over my life. Or rather striving to be good enough took over my life.’ Leo had been a hard taskmaster when she’d gone to live with him and trying to get it right had been impossible. ‘I’m afraid if I took it up again I’d be back in that place. I don’t think I can have one without the other.’

‘Well, that sounds intense,’ he murmured.

‘Trust me—’ she grimaced ‘—it was.’

Kent’s fingers tightened around the wheel. ‘Did you paint nudes?’ he asked, wondering suddenly if that was where the Pinto puzzle pieces fitted.

Sadie pulled her gaze off the horizon, not that far gone that she didn’t recognise he’d moved her into dangerous territory.

‘Where should we stop for lunch, do you think?’ she asked, pulling the map out of the glovebox.

They stopped for lunch at a truck stop near Blackall. Sadie ate a ham and salad roll but discarded the bun. Kent watched as she leaned forward slightly when his hamburger with beetroot and a fried egg arrived as if she was trying to absorb its mouth-watering aroma. He was also aware of her gaze as he brought it to his mouth and chomped into the juicy delight.

When the waitress delivered his lamington and large caramel thick shake to the table he thought he almost heard her whimper before she stood abruptly.

‘I’ll wait for you by the car,’ she said.

Kent watched her go. Her wavy hair swung between her shoulder blades, her shirt hung loose around her waist and bottom, completely concealing everything down to the backs of her thighs. But every time she moved those curves moved with her and there wasn’t one trucker in the joint that didn’t watch her sway out of the door.

He continued to watch her through the glass sliding doors as she walked out into the heat of the midday sun and strolled towards the vehicle. She looked up at a massive road train semi-trailer thundering past. The guy driving was hanging out his window, leering and yelling something at Sadie.

Kent wasn’t an expert lip-reader but he did pretty well with body language so he figured that when Sadie flipped the bird, the trucker had probably suggested she flash him a certain part of her anatomy.

He sucked the last of the thick icy shake up his straw and watched his fellow diners, who were looking wistfully at Sadie no doubt wishing that she’d complied with the lewd request.

The woman was a walking, talking hourglass. Why was she so hell-bent on straitjacketing her assets? Why did she want to starve them into submission?

Kent stood, throwing a tip on the table.

It was none of his bloody business.

Halfway
between Barcaldine and Longreach they blew a tyre. Sadie was in a deep sleep when Kent’s curse woke her.

‘What’s up?’ she asked as he pulled off onto the side of the highway.

‘Got a flat.’ He turned off the engine. ‘Sit tight. I’ll have it fixed in a jiffy.’

Sadie blinked as lingering sleepiness tugged at her eyelids. Broken sleep made her irritable and his
he-man
condescension grated. ‘What makes you think I can’t have it done in a jiffy?’ she grouched as he opened his door. ‘I am perfectly capable of changing a tyre, you know?’

Kent raised his hands in surrender. ‘You want to do it? Knock yourself out. I’m all for women’s lib.’

If she wanted to get hot and dirty he wasn’t going to stop her. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to undo the wheel nuts but it might be fun watching her try.

Sadie jumped down to the ground and looked around. The scenery hadn’t changed much for hours. Flat, dry, brittle pastures with the slightest tinge of green. And lots of sheep. It was quiet out here apart from the occasional rattle of a passing car.

‘Where are we?’ she asked when she joined him to look at the shredded back passenger tyre.

‘’Bout half an hour out of Longreach,’ he said, kicking the flat in disgust. He’d put four new tyres on the vehicle before coming away. ‘We’ll get the tyre repaired there.’

He walked to the back and opened the doors. Sadie helped him move their gear onto the ground so he could access the spare tyre.

‘How long will that take?’ Making this trip any longer wasn’t particularly thrilling.

‘Hopefully they’ll be able to do it for us straight away. Maybe a delay of an hour?’ He located the wheel brace and handed it to her. ‘Why don’t you get started while I grab the spare?’

Sadie saw the challenge in his eyes and gave him a triumphant smile. A man who’d always wanted a son had been a useful person to have around when she was learning to drive—Sadie had changed many a tyre, thanks to her father.

She approached the job with a spring in her step. It would be good to teach
he-man
that she was a little more than a neurotic, food-obsessed girly.

And it was a perfect plan until she hit the first hurdle. None of the wheel nuts would budge. When Kent brought the spare around she was cursing and muttering under her breath, practically standing on the brace trying to shift one of the stubborn nuts.

‘Would you like a hand?’ he asked innocently.

She glared at him. ‘Why on earth are these on so tight? You’d need to be Popeye on steroids to get them undone.’

He grinned. ‘They tighten the nuts with a machine.’

‘Well, that seems kind of stupid, doesn’t it, if people can’t get them off?’

He nodded, trying to be serious. ‘Of course, maybe if you’d eaten a burger for lunch you might be feeling stronger.’

‘I would have to have eaten an entire side of beef to be strong enough to take these suckers off.’ She thrust the brace at him in disgust. ‘Looks like it’s a job for
he-man
.’

Kent suppressed the urge to cough at her forceful handing over of the tool. ‘Step aside.’

Sadie watched, her pride soothed as Kent had to use significant grunt to shift the nuts. Still, he made pretty short work of the tyre change and was cleaning off greasy hands in less than fifteen minutes.

He had sweat and grease on his forehead and the testosterone cloud emanating from him was making her dizzy. She opened the back passenger door and handed him a bottle of cold water from the supply in the camp-fridge.

‘Thanks,’ Kent said, twisting the lid and guzzling half in one swallow before pouring some over his head.

Sadie’s gaze followed rivulets of water as they trekked over the contours of his face, his mouth and down the tanned column of his neck.

She reached in and grabbed one for herself.

A breeze lifted her hair as she slaked her thirst and put out a few fires south of her throat. Lusting after Kent was just plain counterproductive. She had a job to do here and it didn’t have anything to do with her sexy photographer.

She didn’t need another complication.

Leo was complicated enough.

She lounged back against the vehicle, ignoring Kent, who was doing the same. She looked out over the outback vista instead. It seemed flat all the way to the horizon, interrupted only by the odd clump of trees and the occasional fence. The only population appeared to be sheep and the odd passing car.

There was something soothing about the isolation.

In the distance she saw the beginning of something that looked like a brown dust cloud barrelling along close to the ground and parallel with the road. ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

Kent squinted to where she was pointing. It was too far away to see properly but, given that it was travelling at a rate of knots, it wouldn’t be long before it was passing by. ‘Not sure,’ he said, reaching into the back passenger foot well and removing his camera bag.

He pulled out his camera, clicked on the zoom lens and looked through it. He smiled as the cloud took form and shape.

‘Emus,’ he announced.

Sadie stared as the cloud came closer and she could just make out individual figures. ‘So it is,’ she murmured. ‘Wow, look at them go!’

A flock of about a dozen of the large, flightless birds was running helter-skelter, their powerful legs eating up the paddock, their feet kicking up dirt and dust, their soft feathers bouncing with each foot fall. As they got closer still Sadie counted ten of them.

Even with them way out in the paddock when they passed by, they were a magnificent sight. ‘Where are they going?’ she mused out loud.

‘Who knows?’ Kent shrugged as he snapped off a series of pictures. ‘But they’re in a hurry.’

They’d no sooner drawn nearer then they were past. ‘That was amazing,’ Sadie said, watching the cloud get smaller and smaller. ‘I’ve never seen emus in the wild.’

He tisked. ‘City chick,’ he muttered as he continued to click away.

Sadie watched him as he peered through the lens—focused, centred. It reminded her of the picture she’d seen of him in New York, where the camera had seemed an extension of him. He stood, his whole body engaged in the process, as if he’d been born with a camera.

‘When did you know you wanted to take pictures for a living?’

Kent ignored her, snapping until the birds were no longer distinguishable. When he pulled the camera away from his face he looked down at Sadie. His first instinct was to shut her down, as he had been doing, but the camera felt good in his hand, the pictures he’d just taken felt right and he remembered the first time so vividly.

‘I was sixteen. My grandfather took me on a road trip to the Red Centre during the school holidays. His camera was ancient but it took amazing images.’

Sadie thought how nice it would have been to have had a grandparent in her life. ‘That was nice of him,’ she mused.

Kent snorted. ‘I think my mother was at the end of her tether and Grandad feared there would be bloodshed. I think he was just trying to save his daughter’s sanity.’

He smiled, remembering that momentous trip. How it had changed his life.

He put the camera to his face again and scanned the broad canvas before him. ‘There was something about the light out there,’ he said. ‘The contrasting colours. I was hooked.’

Sadie watched him peering through his lens. ‘I bet your mother was relieved,’ she murmured.

Kent gave a short sharp laugh as he lowered the camera. ‘Hell, yeah. She signed me up for a photography course as soon as I got back.’

Sadie sucked in a breath at the smile that transformed the harsh planes of his face. He really ought to do it more often. ‘And you never gave her a spot of bother again?’ she predicted.

He nodded. He had knuckled down. Once he’d found his calling he’d put his all into achieving his goal. ‘Essentially,’ he agreed as he returned his camera to its bag in the back of the car. ‘The war zone thing kind of freaked her out.’

Sadie nodded. ‘Mums worry. That’s their job, I guess.’

Her mother had worried about her too. About how she’d tried so hard to be the boy her father wanted. Tried even harder to be the woman Leo wanted. She’d been especially concerned at Sadie’s obsession with her figure.

Kent looked down at the pensive look on her face. She seemed to have gone somewhere far away, a little frown knitting her brows together, her teeth torturing that perfect bottom lip.

‘Come on,’ he said, stepping back from her. And her mouth. ‘We better get this show on the road if we want to get to Mt Isa before this day is over.’

They
got to Mt Isa at eleven that night after a couple of stops for photos. They’d passed the hours with minimal conversation despite Sadie’s best efforts.

‘How are you feeling?’ Kent asked as he pulled into a petrol station. ‘Tired?’

Sadie shook her head. Strangely she wasn’t. Driving through the eerily flat landscape on a cloudless, practically moonless night had been weirdly energising. As if she were in a spaceship, floating through the cosmos.

‘You want to see if we can make the Northern Territory border? It’s another couple of hours but it’ll cut the trip down tomorrow. We can pull off to the side of the road and catch a few hours’ kip before moving on.’

Sadie regarded him for a minute. ‘Pull over? And where do we sleep?’

‘I’ll take my swag up to the roof of the vehicle and sleep under the stars. You can doss down on the back seat if you like.’

She pursed her lips. ‘Camping, huh?’

Kent shot her a derisive look. ‘I’d hardly call it that. But it’s something you should try at least once in your life.’

Sadie looked at him. At his mouth.

Her, him and a billion stars.

And his mouth.

‘Okay.’

FIVE

‘Are you coming up or not?’

Sadie stood with her hands on the bull bar as an outback night stretched dark and mysterious like a lucky eight ball above her head.

It was one a.m. and they were pulled over near the dust-encrusted sign that announced their entry into the Northern Territory. It was chilly and she shivered.

‘Are you sure it’s okay to walk on your car? Won’t it get dinged?’

Kent shut his eyes, blocking out the pinpricks of light twinkling down at him. ‘If it was one of those modern four-wheel drives, sure. But this thing wasn’t built to crumple. It was built to deflect.’

Sadie eyed the bonnet dubiously even though she knew how sturdy it was from the way it handled. Walking on a car just didn’t seem right.

‘By my reckoning I have you by a good twenty-five to thirty kilos, Sadie Bliss, and it didn’t buckle under my weight. Unless of course you want to stay on the ground there and fend off the spiders.’

Sadie’s pulse spiked as she leapt onto the bull bar. Her gaze flicked from side to side. ‘There are spiders?’

Kent opened his eyes and grinned at the strained note in her voice. ‘Probably a few scorpions too, I’d say.’

Sadie shuddered. ‘Now, see, this is why I don’t camp. There aren’t any scorpions at five-star hotels,’ she griped.

‘There aren’t any up here either,’ he said, too tired for hysterics.

Sadie flicked her gaze from the ground to the roof of the car where she could just make out the outline of Kent’s body encased in his swag. ‘Think I’ll just use the back seat,’ she said, even though the thought of having to put her foot to the ground was creeping her out.

‘Up to you. But, just so you know, you’re missing out on a truly spectacular experience.’ The celestial display was utterly dazzling and Kent wished he’d brought his camera up with him. ‘It’ll blow your mind, city girl.’

Sadie rolled her eyes and muttered, ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say,’ under her breath. Except sound travelled exceptionally well through a still outback night and she blushed when she heard Kent chuckle.

‘Okay,’ she announced in a louder voice as she hauled herself onto the bonnet. ‘But I’m going to want my money back if you’re getting me up there under false pretences.’

Kent saluted. ‘Money-back guarantee.’

Sadie kicked off her ballet flats and felt the warmth of the engine heat her cool toes as she clamoured gingerly to her feet. She gave a slight bounce, testing the strength of the metal beneath, satisfied to feel absolutely no give whatsoever.

She scrambled up the windscreen, hanging onto the sturdy metal rungs welded to the roof completely enclosing it.
At least she wouldn’t roll off the roof in her sleep!
She rather inelegantly hauled herself up over the top and crawled on her hands and knees towards Kent and her swag.

She didn’t look at him as she climbed into her bedding and zipped it up to her chin. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, hoping that she could block him and their sleeping arrangement out altogether. She was immediately cocooned in fleecy warmth, tiredness injecting instant fatigue into her marrow. She moved around for a bit attempting to find a comfortable spot, thankful for the swag’s padded lining on the unforgiving metal rooftop.

‘Will you stop wriggling,’ Kent grumbled. He was actually feeling tired and there was something soothing about being outdoors. He planned on taking full advantage.

Sadie stopped moving and opened her eyes as the illusion that she wasn’t on a car rooftop in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, with a virtual stranger was completely obliterated by his gruff command.

And then a billion stars and a crescent moon took over and everything else melted away.

They had stars in Sydney. She’d often been out on the harbour at night and had them twinkle down at her, but somehow they just hadn’t been able to compete with the ones twinkling from the buildings that made up Sydney’s iconic skyline.

Not so tonight.

Tonight a New Year’s Eve fireworks display would have paled in comparison.

The inky blackness blazed and dazzled as the lights from billions of stars glowed seemingly just for her. They crowded each other out, a black and white kaleidoscope, and on the roof of the car in the vast nothingness of the outback night, where the line between heaven and earth didn’t exist, Sadie felt as if she could just reach up and pluck one from the cosmos.

Looking up, she suddenly understood how Van Gogh must have felt when he’d painted his famous starry French sky.

She breathed out. ‘Wow.’

‘Indeed,’ Kent agreed, staring into the inky dome with her. ‘You want your money back now?’

Sadie shook her head slowly. ‘They’re like...diamonds or crystals or teardrops or...something... I don’t have the words.’

Kent grimaced. Unfortunately he did. They were the diamanté on Sadie’s pink thong.

All trillion of them.

Winking down at him.

‘Wow,’ he murmured, trying to divert his thoughts from her underwear. ‘Sadie Bliss lost for words. Somebody call a doctor.’

Sadie smiled as her gaze roamed the sky. ‘Shut up, Kent Nelson. You’re ruining the moment.’

Kent chuckled. ‘I’ll make a camper out of you yet.’

Sadie ignored him as a sudden revelation dawned. She might not be able to find the words but she knew exactly how she could express the swell of emotion swirling inside her. The urge to paint, to replicate what she saw on canvas, flowed through her on a surge of energy that fizzed and bubbled in her veins like a slug of Moët.

She hadn’t felt it in a long time. Not since Leo had told her she’d only been awarded the scholarship to the London Art College because the director owed him a favour.

‘Don’t you want to take a picture of it?’ she said quietly, not wanting to disturb the preternatural hush of the sleeping outback.

Kent glanced at her, surprised by the awe, the emotion in her voice. Her lips were slightly parted, the waning light from the crescent moon laid gentle fingers across the plush pillows.

He nodded as he fixed his gaze firmly heavenward again. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I’ll make sure I get some before the trip ends.’

Sadie wasn’t sure how long they lay there just looking at the sky. She’d have never thought a person could actually stargaze and lose track of time. But her fingers were tingling and her mind was buzzing. How could she capture all this? Do it justice?

How could he?

But then she remembered his photograph in the exhibition—its very starkness the key to its power—and knew if anyone could, he could.

She was conscious of him awake beside her. She could hear his breath. Knew somehow that he, too, was looking at the cosmic vista with the eye of a true artist.

‘I saw
Mortality
,’ she said into the night. ‘In New York. A few months back.’

Kent’s gaze that had been roaming freely screeched to a halt directly above him. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t move a muscle. He barely breathed. He hadn’t wanted that photo, any of the crash photos, to go public but the families of the men who’d died had specifically requested that they be released. And he hadn’t been about to deny them.

Still, he’d had no idea that out of that day forged in hell his photograph of a dying soldier would leave a lasting mark on the world.

It was what every photojournalist dreamed of, he supposed, but it was an honour he could do without.

Sadie turned her head to look at his silent profile. He had one arm flung above him, propping his head a little higher. His mouth was a bleak slash adding to the severity of the rest of his face. His gaze was trained steadfastly above.

‘It was...amazing. Did you see how well the gallery had it lit?’

Kent shook his head. ‘I never go to my exhibitions.’

Sadie blinked, surprised. As an art student she’d survived on dreams of attending her own exhibitions. ‘Well, they did a great job. Although it doesn’t need much, does it? It’s so...stark. Such a...private image. I had to leave. I couldn’t look at it.’

Kent didn’t want to talk about the photo. Especially not with a woman whose definition of a hard day was the presence of a rather large spider.

‘Goodnight, Sadie Bliss,’ he said, rolling away from her.

Then Sadie was staring at his back wishing she’d never said anything at all.

Sadie
was momentarily confused when she startled awake some time later, her heart racing. She wasn’t sure of the time but the stars were still out in force. She wasn’t even sure what had woken her. Then Kent whimpered beside her and she knew.

She raised herself up on her elbow, her pulse still beating madly as he shook his head from side to side in his sleep, baring his gritted teeth. His swag had ridden down exposing his T-shirt-clad chest. His breath sawed in and out, harsh and loud in the stillness of the night.

‘Kent?’ she murmured.

He didn’t respond, still obviously caught somewhere deep and dark inside his head. The same place the shadows came from, no doubt.

‘Kent?’ she said, louder this time.

Still nothing.

Another distressed little cry came from somewhere at the back of his throat, his face twisting as if he were in physical as well as mental agony, and before she could form a rational thought she was reaching out for him, placing her hand on his chest.

‘Shh,’ she murmured, rubbing the flat of her palm against his chest, soothing him as she would one of her younger brothers. ‘Shh.’

To her surprise, he quietened a little and she continued to gently pat his chest until the creases in his face flattened out, his beautiful mouth relaxed, his breathing settled.

She looked down at him as she absently patted him. What was going on inside his head? Was he reliving the helicopter crash that killed nine of the soldiers he’d been embedded with for almost two months? Was he hearing their cries? Did he see Dwayne Johnson’s rosary beads and his grimy tear-streaked face every time he shut his eyes?

She had. For days after leaving the gallery it had played on her mind. And she’d only seen the photograph.

She hadn’t been there when it had all gone down.

Had he talked to someone about it? Or didn’t
he-men
believe in all that touchy-feely stuff?

Maybe he needed to, though. If he was suffering from PTSD it would be vital, surely? Even
he-men
needed help through such huge life upheavals.

The cool air swirling around her shoulders made her shiver and Sadie collapsed on her side, hunching down a little into her swag, keeping her palm anchored against his chest. She was reluctant to remove it despite Kent’s now peaceful slumber. The steady thump of his heartbeat was firm and solid beneath her fingers, his chest expanded evenly and it was curiously reassuring.

Her gaze drifted to his face, relaxed now. She followed the hollows beneath his cheekbones to the beautiful symmetry of his mouth. Even slack with slumber it was utterly fascinating and for the first time in a long time she wished she had her sketch book with her. Once upon a time she’d never have gone anywhere without it.

And tonight with the stars and Kent’s mouth she missed it desperately.

Movement in the distance caught her eye and she flicked her gaze just above his face to see the tail end of a shooting star heading towards the inky, barely discernible horizon.

She shut her eyes deciding what to wish upon. It should be something to do with Leo. A wish that he could see she had been a success without him. A wish that maybe he’d still want her. Just a little. That maybe he was still a little in love with her.

That he’d been pining for her.

But strangely on this night that Kent had given her she didn’t want it to be about a man who had used her up and thrown her away.

So she wished Kent a dreamless sleep before drifting off herself.

Kent woke slowly to early daylight. The sun was still low and there was a heavy feeling against his chest. He gradually cracked his eyelids open, giving his pupils a chance to adjust.

It was quiet. So quiet. No muffled city traffic waking him. Not even insects to break the eerie morning stillness.

The sky, not yet fully warmed by the sun, was still a soft blue. He turned his head, inspecting the distant horizon. The line where the dome of the heavens met the arc of the earth was still a little hazy in the cool morning air. In an hour, when heat transformed blue sky and red dirt into almost unbearable vibrancy, the line would slash a distinct path between the two.

He looked down at his chest, surprised to find the heaviness there was a hand. Sadie’s hand. He turned his head to look at her, his gaze meeting a river of hair, her back to him. He looked down at her hand again. No rings. No fingernail polish. None of those French manicures that every second woman seemed to sport these days. Just neatly trimmed nails, not too short, not too long.

Nothing fancy. Just like the rest of her.

Quite why she had her hand on his chest he wasn’t sure. He knew from her loglike sleep in Cunnamulla she wasn’t a restless sleeper. So why was she touching him?

And, more importantly, why was he just lying here not doing anything about it?

In the distance he could just make out the noise of a car approaching and as it got closer she started to stir. He froze as Sadie turned, rolled to face him, sighed, licked her gorgeous lips and then settled to sleep again.

All without moving her hand.

He held his breath as the car passed by without waking her and then he was looking right in her face, her plump mouth moist from the swipe of her tongue. The deep red rouge of it, like an apple amongst the creaminess of her complexion, looked lush and kissable. Her eyelashes fell lightly against her cheeks. Her wild wavy hair framing the lot as if she’d just been painted by Rubens himself.

He found himself wishing for his camera again. Wanting to capture the way the gentle morning light enhanced her too wide eyes and her too big mouth into something quite striking.

Wondering if that too big mouth of hers kissed as well as it wisecracked.

If it was as good a lover as it was a talker.