Leopard Dreaming (62 page)

‘You can’t blame yourself for that. Kitching had a whole family tree with him. Cut the main branch, and up spring all the buds.’

He smiled, and nothing else mattered. ‘That sounds like it should be a line of Braille for your Poet Trees.’

‘
Our
Poet Trees. We’ll emboss it together.’

M
ira closed her eyes as a warm flood of relief and tears swept over her. He was her lieutenant. Her Love. Her forever, but …

‘There’s only one more little thing.’

‘With you?’ he laughed. ‘That’s SOP on the
good
days.’

‘This one’s a little weird. Did you know that Fragile X carriers are statistically more likely to have twins than single births? It’s something to do with the gene that drives the mutations.’

‘That explains my sister’s twins,’ he chuckled. ‘Little monsters.’

‘I’m serious.’ She slapped his chest.

‘Ow! So am I.’ He winced in real pain. ‘They’re perfect kids.’

‘Sorry! I didn’t mean to suggest they weren’t.’

‘I know. I was teasing. Just because they’re twins, doesn’t mean they’re also Fragile X carriers. I’ve never noticed any symptoms in them.’

‘They could be carriers and never present any symptoms. So could you, for that matter.’

‘You’re worried I’m a carrier?’

Mira shrugged, unsure now herself. Freddie had
warned her there would be a dangerous two-way attraction between carriers, but his motives had been warped at the time.

‘Would you mind if I touched you to check something?’

He splayed open his arms, inviting her to do anything.

She sighed, already knowing he’d pass the test. As her hands shaped around his chest, staying a thumb’s distance away, she could already feel the ache to join with him. ‘Can you feel that? It’s soft and fragile, a little like magnetism.’

‘Hell yeah, but the attraction I’m getting is about as fragile as a nuclear bomb.’

‘That’s not it.’

‘Trust me, sweetheart. The only attraction we have is entirely healthy.’

‘I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing. Maybe you need to take off your shirt to feel it better?’

He ripped it off so fast, with a simple flick from the back of his neck, that she barely had time to register it flapping like a fallen flag to her feet.

She blinked in astonishment.

‘Girls do it with bras, guys do it with shirts.’

It didn’t seem to hurt him much that way either.

‘It’s not that,’ she repeated, impressed anyway. ‘It’s not your patchwork of bandages either, despite this whole lopsided motif you’ve got going. I might have to join the dots later. See what we can make …’ to match his amazing tribal tattoo. A serpent from the dreamtime. It stretched up his tanned side, curling around and guarding his heart. Staring back at her.

‘Oh, that? Don’t let her scare you. She’s all I have left of my great-grandmother.’ He patted the serpent’s head and smiled as if it triggered a fond memory. ‘Her name is Etti.’

‘Oh, my God.’ Mira clasped her hand to her mouth. ‘Etti Freeman. I knew her!’

‘How? She was an Islander. After my great-grandfather died on the mainland, she moved back to be with her own people.’

‘We went to school together. Ghost school. In the ruins of the colonial settlement. She never saw me, obviously, but for the longest time, she was the closest thing I had to a best friend.’ Now she had Gabby. ‘I saw her grown up recently too, and married. Aside from the beard, you’re the spitting image of your great-grandfather.’

‘Well, now. Doesn’t that make us a pair.’ He stroked her hair, drawing her against him. ‘Forget any worries you have about us now, Mira. We’ve been linked long before we even met.’

She came to rest lightly against his patchwork, beside the serpent, and closing her eyes, she caressed it with an energy field of yester-lights from her fingertips — feeling the goose-pimples rise over his skin, without needing to touch him. She’d used the same technique to teach Ben how to sense the lingering energy of his father in his house, and for reading colours of invisible things, since the radiation of light behaved the same with slow light as it did within the normal visible spectrum, but she’d never achieved such a joyous sense of contentment before.

Mira beamed with a smile so wide she felt it behind her ears. ‘On the way to the bunker, I also caught a glimpse of her new baby girl.’

‘My grandmother too? Wow, I loved that pair. They could fill a whole branch of your Poet Trees with wisdom. Want to hear one of my favourites?’

‘Every day for the rest of my life.’ She snuggled against him, keeping her eyes closed, toying with the serpent and waiting for his voice to fill the darkness.

‘They used to draw this serpent in the river sand near the campfire after mustering, and talk about time as a dream; with all the people and animals of the
universe, past and future, already woven into the same great wavy river. Then they’d laugh at me running around, playing with burning sticks as if they were light sabres, and promised me that even a noisy white boy like me could dream and know everything, if I’d only shut up and sit still long enough to listen.’

Mira laughed and gazed up at him. ‘Maybe we should find somewhere quieter to test that theory.’

‘Are you serious?’ He cupped her face so tenderly, it took a moment to notice that he wasn’t actually touching her. He’d closed his eyes too, and was only using the light energy radiating from his hands, as if he could also sense how close he’d come to her.

‘Wow, you learned that faster than Ben.’ Better too, but they were rivals enough already.

‘I had a head start,’ he chuckled. ‘It’s a basic training exercise to navigate obstacles blindfolded and at night.’

Mira poked the nose of his fierce serpent. ‘Did you just call me an obstacle?’

‘If the shoe fits. You’re not well enough to go anywhere.’

‘Let’s test that theory too, shall we?’ Her hand circled lightly back to his heart, slowly and sensually, making his pulse quicken, and in turn her own heartbeat doubled.

‘After everything you’ve been through,’ he whispered, drawing seductively closer to her ear, ‘it’d kill me to hurt you.’

‘I’m more worried about you.’

‘Yeah, you would be.’

‘Can’t help it …’ Mira kissed his neck, longing to kiss him and trail more down his body, tasting every part of him. ‘I’m stuck with a beastly gene, Jayson. We can deny it all we like, but I still can’t control how it makes me feel.’

‘That’s just normal instincts,’ he assured her. ‘I wish mine were as tame as yours.’

‘Do you really?’ Her finger trailed lightly down his chest to the waist of his jeans. ‘I have no idea what I’m doing, but the beast in me can smell the beast in you so strongly it’s driving me wild already, being this close to you.’

‘Not here,’ he whispered huskily. He caught her hand and raised it back to his heart. ‘You deserve much better. Somewhere soft with rose petals or wild flowers.’

‘Not here,’ she echoed, but she was already lost with desire for him, and if it wasn’t for his restraint, and his wounds, she would have leapt on him already. ‘Please touch me.’

‘Oh, baby. You don’t know how hard you’re making this, but you’re not up to it.’

‘Says you. I may not be able to control it, but I’m more in tune with my body now than ever. Maybe I’ll hurt more tomorrow, and maybe not. Right now, I hardly feel anything. And the nearer I get to you, the better I feel — as if the joining of our slow light is already healing me.’

Still he hesitated, even though she could sense his temperature rising now too.

‘The nurses won’t notice me missing for hours,’ she pleaded.

‘You really think you can handle being away from medical care so soon after surgery?’

‘I don’t think, I
know
. Far more than that, I need it.’ She nuzzled his neck, filling her lungs with the scent of him — charging herself on his raw energy and making it even harder to contain herself. Time had to be ticking on, which meant Gabby and Darkin were likely to return soon. ‘What’s our exit strategy?’

‘I’m thinking mine are all too risky for you. With your chest injuries, you shouldn’t be changing altitude too fast, or your lungs might collapse. I’m not even sure if you could handle an elevator.’

She frowned at him sceptically. ‘People fall off cliffs all the time and puncture lungs or break ribs, and they all get airlifted as their primary mode of transport.’

‘Yes,
to
hospital. With trained medics monitoring all the way.’

‘So? I’m patched up already, and you’re a field medic. Unless you forgot everything when you handed in the uniform. I’m still more concerned about you, and how you plan on changing altitude too fast. You’ve got chest injuries too, and Gabby will kill me if I ruin this dress by sliding down stairs or a flying fox.’

‘Have I ever mentioned my pilot’s licence? For mustering, we —’

‘Shhh.’ She pressed her finger to his lips. ‘I’ve learned enough of your secrets for today. For tonight, all I want is this.’ She laid her hand lightly over her heart, then looking up at him, she grinned cheekily. ‘I’m also keeping these.’

She dipped into her cleavage, briefly, revealing just enough of his black, rubber-edged dog tags to remind him that she still had them. ‘If you want them back now, you’ll have to come and get them.’

She took her time lowering them out of sight again.

He groaned, watching her, as if his own beast growled and pounded to break free.

‘Just answer me this,’ he pleaded. ‘If I promised you a soft bed at the end of a fast flight, could you handle twenty minutes flying low, under the radar?’

‘Under, over.’ She found the artery that pulsed from his temple down his throat and teased it back and forth with her blunt fingernail. ‘So long as I’m with you, I can go anywhere.’ She pressed a light trail of kisses across his shoulder, while her hand slid lower, exploring the full shape of his serpent.

‘Dear Lorrrd,’ he cried as he threw back his head. ‘Give me strength.’

‘No mercy for you, soldier. You’re with me now.’ She licked his neck, loving the taste of his skin. ‘Too bad for you. My beast thinks you’re delicious.’

He grabbed her by the hand and turned for the door.

‘Wait, wait!’ she cried, and leaned carefully to grab her wallaby pouch and new shoes. ‘Gold for fortune, so Gabby knows not to worry.’

‘NATO must have missed that memo for the code book.’ In the same time, he’d donned his shirt from the ground. ‘Get your beast back into my arms, honey, before mine goes wild and eats you right here.’

He reached for her, and she tucked straight in under his arm, as if made to fit.

Down the hall within seconds, he borrowed a therapist’s wheelie walker from a hall stand to get her down stairs with the glide-rail attachment, and across into the nearest hangar where the toothless gun ships and older surveillance birds were usually garaged for days or weeks between training sessions for the rookiest rookies.

Nearest to the big doors sat a little bubble with eggbeaters. Smallest chopper she’d ever seen.

‘It’s a Cheetah,’ Lockman said as he steered her for it. ‘Fast, nimble and used for training medevacs. Also prepped and ready to go, thanks to a few loyal mates still in uniform and twenty-nine hours advance notice.’

He strapped her in and waved to one of the usual flight crew.

‘Won’t somebody else notice it missing?’

‘Not likely. Garland’s only visiting. These guys are still assigned to the general who owes me one from East Timor.’

Riding low over the trees and fields within minutes, he used a foot control to kick open a window beside his knee, and let in a breeze that whipped up her hair, smelling wildly of forests and freedom.

Howl on, all the demons from her past, she thought. Howl on, all her rivals and enemies, dead and living. She’d come through the darkest hours of her life, with more to come when time came around again. But for now she had Jayson, and her friends and a place to call home. She had a purpose in life, finally, and the benefit of hindsight, diamond eyes and the fresh hopes and dreams she’d inherited from the very noblest corner of her grandfather’s heart.

She felt so happy she screamed.

A small pocket of turbulence made her grip onto her seat, in reflex — thrilling her so much she let it out again and again with each pocket of air. Below her, she saw the broad dark waters of Wivenhoe Dam, and skimming higher into the hills; the more jagged outline of Splityard Creek.

Lockman pointed out the ridge that served as a landmark for the southern end of his family property, thrilling her again as they swooped in low over a herd of his galloping horses.

Her lungs felt new as the day she was born and she screamed and squealed all the way to the soft mountain grasses, where he landed in his own private field of wildflowers. She felt so alive finally, she knew she could handle anything from now and forever so long as she faced it with him.

‘Oh, the box!’ she cried. A pang of guilt struck her for not paying more attention to his mysterious gift, delivered especially to her room.

‘Forget it. Never meant to be, obviously.’ He lifted her out, still carrying her shoes and the joey.

Setting her bare feet down in the cool dewy grasses beside his, he smiled at her, making all the rest of the world disappear.

She cuddled into him as he led her up to his charming cabin, feeling no pain at all, as if the surges of energies she’d been experiencing around him really
had begun to heal her at a faster pace. And yet that one little detail kept niggling her.

‘Please? At least, tell me what was in it.’

‘You’ll figure it out.’ His grin broadened as he lifted her up onto the rustic timber porch. ‘You, me, a bunch of friends and a movie marathon. Only one thing it could be.’

‘Oh, popcorn?’ She’d missed yet another chance for the taste of a normal life, but she didn’t mind turning her back on it now. She was different. He was different, and she could finally come to terms with it in their own unique shades of reality.

At the door, he swept her up into his arms, kicked it open and carried her over the threshold, into her brand new future.