Her Knight in the Outback (3 page)

She scrutinised him again. The healthy, unmarked skin under the shaggy beard. The bright eyes. The even teeth.

‘What's your story?' she asked.

‘No story. I'm travelling.'

‘You're not a bikie.' Statement, not question.

‘Not everyone with a motorbike belongs in an outlaw club,' he pointed out.

‘You look like a bikie.'

‘I wear leather because it's safest when you get too intimate with asphalt. I have a beard because one of the greatest joys in life is not having to shave, and so I indulge that when I'm travelling alone.'

She glanced down to where the dagger protruded from his T-shirt sleeve. ‘And the tattoo?'

His eyes immediately darkened. ‘We were all young and impetuous once.'

‘Who's Christine?'

‘Christine's not relevant to this discussion.'

Bang. Total shutdown. ‘Come on, Marshall. I aired my skeleton.'

‘Something tells me you air it regularly. To anyone who'll listen.'

Okay, this time the criticism was unmistakable. She pushed more upright in her chair. ‘You were asking the questions, if you recall.'

‘Don't get all huffy. We barely know each other. Why would I spill my guts to a stranger?'

‘I don't know. Why would you rescue a stranger on the street?'

‘Not wanting to see you beaten to a pulp and not wanting to share my dirty laundry are very different things.'

‘Oh, Christine's dirty laundry?'

His lips thinned even further and he pushed away from the table. ‘Thanks for the drink. Good luck with your brother.'

She shot to her feet, too. ‘Wait. Marshall?'

He stopped and turned back slowly.

‘I'm sorry. I guess I'm out of practice with people,' she said.

‘You're not kidding.'

‘Where are you staying?'

‘In town.'

Nice and non-specific. ‘I'm a bit... I get a bit tired of eating in the bus. On my own. Can I interest you in something to eat, later?'

‘I don't think so.'

Walk away, Eve.
That would be the smart thing to do.

‘I'll change the subject. Not my brother. Not your...'
Not your Christine?
‘We can talk about places we've been. Favourite sights.' Her voice petered out.

His eyebrows folded down over his eyes briefly and disguised them from her view. But he finally relented. ‘There's a café across the street from my motel. End of this road.'

‘Sounds good.'

She didn't usually eat out, to save money, but then she didn't usually have the slightest hint of company either. One dinner wouldn't kill her. Alone with a stranger. Across the road from his motel room.

‘It's not a date, though,' she hastened to add.

‘No.' The moustache twisted up on the left. ‘It's not.'

And as he and his leather pants sauntered back out of the bar, she felt like an idiot. An adolescent idiot
. Of course
this was not a date and
of course
he wouldn't have considered it such. Hairy, lone-wolf types who travelled the country on motorbikes probably didn't stand much on ceremony when it came to women. Or bother with dates.

She'd only mentioned a meal at all because she felt bad that she'd pressed an obvious sore point with him after he'd shown her nothing but interest and acceptance about Travis.

*facepalm*

Her brother's favourite saying flittered through her memory and never seemed more appropriate. Hopefully, a few hours and a good shower from now she could be a little more socially appropriate and a lot less hormonal.

Inexplicably so.

Unwashed biker types were definitely not her thing, no matter how nice their smiles. Normally, the
eau de sweaty man
that littered towns in the Australian bush flared her nostrils. But as Marshall Sullivan had hoisted her up against his body out in the street she'd definitely responded to the powerful circle of his hold, the hard heat of his chest and the warmth of his hissed words against her ear.

Even though it came with the tickle of his substantial beard against her skin.

She was
so
not a beard woman.

A man who travelled the country alone was almost certainly doing it for a reason. Running from something or someone. Dropping out of society. Hiding from the authorities. Any number of mysterious and dangerous things.

Or maybe Marshall Sullivan was just as socially challenged as she was.

Maybe that was why she had a sudden and unfathomable desire to sit across a table from the man again.

‘See you at seven-thirty, then,' she called after him.

* * *

Eve's annoyance at herself for being late—and at caring about that—turned into annoyance at Marshall Sullivan for being even later. What, had he got lost crossing the street?

Her gaze scanned the little café diner as she entered—over the elderly couple with a stumpy candle, past the just-showered Nigel No Friends reading a book and the two men arguing over the sports pages. But as her eyes grazed back around to the service counter, they stumbled over the hands wrapped around
Nigel'
s
battered novel. Beautiful hands.

She stepped closer. ‘Marshall?'

Rust-flecked eyes glanced up to her. And then he pushed to his feet. To say he was a changed man without the beard would have been an understatement. He was transformed. His hair hadn't been cut but it was slicked back either with product or he truly had just showered. But his face...

Free of the overgrown blondish beard and moustache, his eyes totally stole focus, followed only by his smooth broad forehead. She'd always liked an unsullied forehead. Reliable somehow.

He slid a serviette into the book to mark his place and closed it.

She glanced at the cover.
‘Gulliver's Travels?'

Though what she really wanted to say was...
You shaved?

‘I carry a few favourites around with me in my pack.'

She slid in opposite him, completely unable to take her eyes off his new face. At a loss to reconcile it as the under layer of all that sweat, dust and helmet hair she'd encountered out on the road just a few days ago. ‘What makes it a favourite?'

He thought about that for a bit. ‘The journeying. It's very human. And Gulliver is a constant reminder that perspective is everything in life.'

Huh. She'd just enjoyed it for all the little people.

They fell to silence.

‘You shaved,' she finally blurted.

‘I did.'

‘For dinner?' Dinner that wasn't a date.

His neatly groomed head shook gently. ‘I do that periodically. Take it off and start again. Even symbols of liberty need maintenance.'

‘That's what it means to you? Freedom?'

‘Isn't that what the Bedford means to you?'

Freedom? No. Sanity, yes. ‘The bus is just transport and accommodation conveniently bundled.'

‘You forget I've seen inside it. That's not convenience. That's sanctuary.'

Yeah...it was, really. But she didn't know him well enough to open up to that degree.

‘I bought the Bedford off this old carpenter after his wife died. He couldn't face travelling any more without her.'

‘I wonder if he knows what he's missing.'

‘Didn't you just say perspective was everything?'

‘True enough.'

A middle-aged waitress came bustling over, puffing, as though six people at once was the most she'd seen in a week. She took their orders from the limited menu and bustled off again.

One blond brow lifted. ‘You carb-loading for a marathon?'

‘You've seen the stove in the Bedford. I can only cook the basics in her. Every now and again I like to take advantage of a commercial kitchen's deep-fryer.'

Plus, boiling oil would kill anything that might otherwise not get past the health code. There was nothing worse than being stuck in a small town, throwing your guts up. Unless it was being stuck on the side of the road between small towns and kneeling in the roadside gravel.

‘So, you know how I'm funding my way around the country,' she said. ‘How are you doing it?'

He stared at her steadily. ‘Guns and drugs.'

‘Ha-ha.'

‘That's what you thought when you saw me. Right?'

‘I saw a big guy on a lonely road trying really hard to get into my vehicle. What would you have done?'

Those intriguing eyes narrowed just slightly but then flicked away. ‘I'm out here working. Like you. Going from district to district.'

‘Working for who?'

‘Federal Government.'

‘Ooh, the Feds. That sounds much more exciting than it probably is. What department?'

He took a long swig of his beer before answering. ‘Meteorology.'

She stared. ‘You're a
weatherman
?'

‘Right. I stand in front of a green screen every night and read maximums and minimums.'

Her smile broadened. ‘You're a weatherman.'

He sagged back in his chair and spoke as if he'd heard this one time too many. ‘Meteorology is a science.'

‘You don't look like a scientist.' Definitely not before and, even clean shaven, Marshall was still too muscular and tattooed.

‘Would it help if I was in a lab coat and glasses?'

‘Yes.' Because the way he packed out his black T-shirt was the least nerdy thing she'd ever seen. ‘So why are my taxes funding your trip around the country, exactly?'

‘You're not earning. You don't pay taxes.'

The man had a point. ‘Why are you out here, then?'

‘I'm auditing the weather stations. I check them, report on their condition.'

Well, that explained the hands. ‘I thought you were this free spirit on two wheels. You're an auditor.'

His lips tightened. ‘Something tells me that's a step down from weatherman in your eyes.'

She got stuck into her complimentary bread roll, buttering and biting into it. ‘How many stations are there?'

‘Eight hundred and ninety-two.'

‘And they send one man?' Surely they had locals that could check to make sure possums hadn't moved into their million-dollar infrastructure.

‘I volunteered to do the whole run. Needed the break.'

From...?
But she'd promised not to ask. They were supposed to be talking about travel highlights. ‘Where was the most remote station?'

‘Giles. Seven hundred and fifty clicks west of Alice. Up in the Gibson Desert.'

Alice Springs. Right smack bang in the middle of their massive island continent. ‘Where did you start?'

‘Start and finish in Perth.'

A day and a half straight drive from here. ‘Is Perth home?'

‘Sydney.'

She visualised the route he must have taken clockwise around the country from the west. ‘So you're nearly done, then?'

His laugh drew the eyes of the other diners. ‘Yeah. If two-thirds of the weather stations weren't in the bottom third of the state.'

‘Do you get to look around? Or is it all work?'

He shrugged. ‘Some places I skip right through. Others I linger. I have some flexibility.'

Eve knew exactly what that was like. Some towns whispered to you like a lover. Others yelled at you to go. She tended to move on quickly from those.

‘Favourites so far?'

And he was off... Talking about the places that had captivated him most. The prehistoric, ferny depths of the Claustral Canyon, cave-diving in the crystal-clear ponds on South Australia's limestone coast, the soul-restoring solidity of Katherine Gorge in Australia's north.

‘And the run over here goes without saying.'

‘The Nullabor?' Pretty striking with its epic treeless stretches of desert but not the most memorable place she could recall.

‘The Great Australian Bight,' he clarified.

She just blinked at him.

‘You got off the highway on the way over, right? Turned for the coast?'

‘My focus is town to town.'

He practically gaped. ‘One of the most spectacular natural wonders in the world was just a half-hour drive away.'

‘And half an hour back. That was an hour sooner I could have made it to the next town.'

His brows dipped over grey eyes. ‘You've got to get out more.'

‘I'm on the job.'

‘Yeah, me, too, but you have to live as well. What about weekends?'

The criticism rankled. ‘Not all of us are on the cushy public servant schedule. An hour—a day—could mean the difference between running across someone who knew Travis and not.'

Or even running into Trav himself.

‘What if they came through an hour after you left, and pausing to look at something pretty could have meant your paths crossed?'

Did he think she hadn't tortured herself with those thoughts late at night? The endless what-ifs?

‘An hour afterwards and they'll see a poster. An hour before and they'd have no idea their shift buddy is a missing person.' At least that was what she told herself. Sternly.

Marshall blinked at her.

‘You don't understand.' How could he?

‘Wouldn't it be faster to just email the posters around the country? Ask the post offices to put them up for you.'

‘It's not just about the posters. It's about talking to people. Hunting down leads. Making an impression.'

Hoping to God the impression would stick.

‘The kind you nearly made this afternoon?'

‘Whatever it takes.'

Their meals arrived and the next minute was filled with making space on the table and receiving their drinks.

‘Anyway, weren't we supposed to be talking about something else?' Eve said brightly, crunching into a chip. ‘Where are you headed next?'

‘Up to Kalgoorlie, then Southern Cross.'

North. Complete opposite to her.