Mountain Ash (18 page)

The footballers were waving beer cans and yelling from the Mini's boot, ‘Ya done now, ya bastards! We're gunna get ya!
Ha ha ha
…!'

Ha ha ha my arse, thought Jodie. She shrugged off Nate's arm and stood up on the fence-post-cum-seat, causing the raft to rock precariously. Her body weaved backwards and forwards. Nate grabbed at her legs, his hand landing right in her crotch. Oh God!

‘Ashie! What are you doing?' yelled Stace, clutching hold of Wal's arm, which in turn nearly sent the old man tumbling into the murky depths of the Riverton River.

‘Christ Almighty, woman, let go. I can't swim,' cried Wal.

‘You can't swim?' roared Nate. ‘What the fuck are you doing on the raft then?'

Wal looked sheepish. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.'

Jodie turned back at a yell from the Riverton boys. ‘We're
com
-ing!'

As would she if Cowboy Nate didn't get his hand off her crotch! There was only one thing for it. She stripped off her top, thanked the Lord she only had shorts on, and dived into the river.

Bloody hell. He couldn't believe she had just dived in. She'd stood there for an instant before she'd leaped and that flicker of a second would remain imprinted on his eyelids forever. Her physique was fit, her body stunning, the skin gold apart from a few silvery lines around her middle and hips, which he dismissed immediately. Her breasts, barely covered by a lacy bra, were small and pert as she raised her arms in the air to jump. She was beautiful. She was all woman and he desperately wanted to gather her into his arms and tell the rest of the world to go hang …

A spray of water hit his face and legs as she entered the river. He gasped at the cold. She emerged to the cries and wolf whistles of the Riverton football team. ‘Hey, princess, wanna come over and pull my …'

He wanted to murder them. How dare they heckle his woman?
His
woman? What the hell?

For her part, Ash grinned and flipped them the bird, then duck-dived under the floating drums, coming up for air in the open middle of the raft and right between his legs. ‘Hiya, cowboy,' she said and then she smiled. He went to heaven and back just watching those dimples sink into her cheeks. ‘I'll just try and work the hay band free. Back in a jiffy.' Then she was gone.

He frantically watched the bubbles as they swung this way then that. She burst into the daylight a little to the left of the raft and mouthed some words he could only just make out over the raucous cries of the footballers. ‘Try it now.'

He flipped the switch to ON, pulled the cord. The little motor spluttered once then stopped. He yanked again. The gutsy outboard spat and coughed, then roared like a lion.

Ash yelled something more from the water, then turned and struck out for the shore. He wasted precious time just watching those muscled olive limbs slice through the air, before being jabbed in the ribs by Stace.

‘What the hell do you think you're waiting for? C'mon, cowboy! We can win this now!'

Ash had made it to the shore and was being hauled out of the river by willing spectators.
He
wanted to be there pulling her up the bank, covering her with his warm body, cuddling her and making her warm. Instead she was standing there on her own, near naked and shivering. But she was smiling, yelling, ‘Go, Nate,
go!
'

He waved and flattened the throttle.

He'd bloody win this raft race if it was the last thing he did.

‘Ride 'em, cowboy,' mumbled Stacey from somewhere in a crowd of bottles. She'd fallen from grace and off the side of the rodeo grandstand at about nine pm.

‘I'll put you to bed,' called Jodie, coming to her rescue. She'd exited the stand in the normal way – down the stairs and around the corner of the tiered structure. Well, passably normal anyway. A wobbling normal. Five more Vodka Cruisers since the race and she wasn't too far behind Stacey in the drunken stakes. ‘I'll take you to your swag and ring Milly.'

‘Ha!' said Stace, peering up at Jodie. ‘As if you'd make any sense, the state you're in. You'll frighten the bejesus out of the girl. Besides, she'll be in bed.'

‘Who's going to bed?' asked Nate. He'd come down the stairs behind them, and now placed a hand on her shoulder. It felt nice. Not proprietorial or heavy like Alex's; not imperative like Milly's. Just … well, just nice. Warm. Comforting even.

‘You're going to bed?' Nate asked again, but specifically to Jodie.

‘No, me,' said Stace.

‘I'll take her, though,' said Jodie, a tad reluctantly.

‘Nah. I'll be fine.' Stace staggered to her feet. ‘Me swag's this way …'

‘Try that way.' Nate spun Stacey a hundred and eighty degrees. ‘Head towards the light and slightly left. You should run into it.'

‘We'll take her,' said another voice: Wal, looking remarkably chipper considering the amount of liquor he'd consumed. Ange and Mel had a hold of him, one on either side. Or did he have hold of them? ‘These lovely ladies are taking me home and I'm taking them.' The man blushed. ‘Well, not home as in to
my
swag. Their swags … their home … their ute … vehicle.
Oh fuck it. I'm going, she can come, you two can stay, that's all I'm saying.'

‘Gotcha,' said Nate, smiling.

‘C'mon, chickens, cluck, cluck.' Wal swung around and made gathering motions towards the three women. ‘Follow old Daddy rooster back to the trucks.'

Jodie watched them leave. She should be going with them. Heading back to the safety, sanctity and relative chastity of her swag. Staying here with this man was inviting trouble. What was she doing? What was she thinking?

Beside her Nate sighed. Gently took her hand. Pulled her in.

There was still time. She could see the quartet in the shadows of the overhead lights. The dark patches were bouncing then slouching as each shape took its turn walking away under the bright globes. There was still time …

A roughened finger caressed her palm, flicked lightly across the nerve endings of her skin. Her heightened senses felt every millimetre of his touch as it warmed her hand.

She looked up into sky-blue eyes, a square jaw, roughened skin. A cowboy.

No time.

No going back.

She turned into the arms of the man beside her. Live a little. Just one night. Just one more time to relive the ride of passion, the need, the
want
to make love to a man who set her body on fire with just a matchstick touch. Then she would go back home to safety, to security, and leave the cowboy behind. But at least she would have the memory to hold on to for the rest of her life.

Nate led her towards the river past some scrubby bushes. She wasn't sure where he was taking her but followed blindly in his wake. Trust. She'd inherently developed it in such a short time with Nate. The devil in her head persisted:
Who's to say he isn't an axe murderer, ready to do away with you and throw your body into the river?
Her heart argued back.
Yeah, right. He sewed a quilt, danced like an idiot, built a raft, warmed me when I was wet from the river. An axe murderer would hardly do that.

They came to his swag, laid out on a secluded section of the riverbank like a comfy double bed. Blankets and mattress waited. Torchlight sparkled in a few different spots, emulating candles, she guessed. A bottle of wine sat in ice in a half-open 20-litre drum. (Stacey's raft Esky if she wasn't mistaken.) Anodised camping mugs sat beside the wine.

‘Riverton Showgrounds isn't the best place to find Stuart crystal,' said Nate.

Jodie waved a hand, shocked at the trouble he'd obviously gone to over the last couple of hours. When had he left her side to do it, she wondered. Aha. He'd been gone for no more than twenty minutes after the hamburger in bread they'd had for tea. What had he said? ‘Going to see a man about a horse.' She'd laughed. Her dad had always said, ‘Going to see a man about a dog,' when he'd gone to the loo. Obviously a visit to the men's had not been Nate's intention.

He sat on the swag. Thumped up and down on the mattress. ‘It's not the Hilton, but it's comfy.'

Jodie laughed. A vague thought flitted. Walk away now, you idiot. Think of Milly.

But she couldn't think of her daughter. She couldn't think of Alex. Amid her drunken fuzziness all she could think of was this cowboy in front of her, lifting his arms, gesturing an
invitation with his hand. ‘Come on, Ash. Just sit with me and enjoy the wine, the river – and who knows what might happen.' He looked so confident, so beautiful in the moonlight, she forgot to be afraid and sat.

Of course sitting
wasn't
what Nate had in mind, but it would do for a start. Ash was like a will-o'-the-wisp. An apparition that might disappear into the night if he shut his eyes. He could sense all that. He wasn't his mother's son for nothing. If Elizabeth McGregor had lived in another age, she would have been touted as having ‘the sight'. Probably caught and burned at the stake for saying what she thought too. But regardless of what his mother had thought and even sometimes had the temerity to say, none of it had held sway with his father. Alex McGregor had barely listened to his wife. And it was only the abhorrent thought of divorce that had kept his mother by his father's side through thick and thin, rich and richer.

Nate shook his head. It was the rum making him morbid. The last thing he wanted to think about right now was his father. He didn't want to think about going
home.
Not while he had this beautiful woman here.

‘It's a lovely river. The trees are so majestic.' Her voice stumbled a bit, like she thought what she was saying was inane.

But it wasn't, because Nate knew exactly what she meant. It
was
a lovely river. In his travels he'd come to understand that rivers had personalities much like people. Some were broad and shallow, inconsequential. Others were tighter and deep with steep sides. Depths that stayed hidden but remained a force to be reckoned with most of the time.

The eucalyptus trees usually knew which was which. The solid majestic river red gums knew which river belonged to whom.

When Ash turned to look at him he could see a blurriness around the edges of her eyes. ‘I'm not sure we should …' she began.

He gathered her hand. ‘Let's just sit and watch the stars for a while.'

So they sat. Although he poured them each a cup of wine, he drank from a rum can he pulled from his jacket pocket. They talked of inconsequential stuff. He told her about a few properties he'd worked on. A couple of funny stories. She didn't say much, just laughed at the right times. Upon consideration, and in one of their companionable silences as they stared at a bright moon and dark ink sky, he realised he didn't know much about her – not even where she lived. She'd been very guarded that morning at the parade … but then he couldn't talk, he'd been selective about what he said himself.

‘Where are you from, Ash?'

She waved a little to the south-east. ‘That a-ways. Just over the border.'

Hours from his home. Close to here in the Snowy Mountains though. Maybe the time spent on the station with Wal's mate Dan wouldn't be all that bad. Maybe he could persuade Ash to be his girl while he was here?
You were giving up women, remember?
Nate could hear Wal's voice in his head. He chuckled. Fancy even thinking he could stay away from someone as gorgeous as Ash. She was somehow different from the other girls he'd known. She was complicated, contradictory. One side of her showed fun, the ability to laugh and play like a teenager, the froth and bubble. Like when she'd saved
Wal this morning. So funny. The other side was more serious: in control, in charge, directed. As if she had a purpose in life. Thinking back, perhaps that was why she'd questioned him so thoroughly on his up-till-now itinerant lifestyle. For sure as hell, purpose was what was lacking in his own life and you tended to be attracted to what you emotionally needed.

He jumped up and held out a hand to her, eased her up towards the sky. ‘C'mon, woman. I'd like to propose a toast.' Her eyes were sparkling, head thrown back, glorious long blonde hair hanging down. The alcohol had loosened her up. And she was hard up against his body. All warm. All soft curves. All woman. He could barely contain his desire. But for now it was a toast. ‘To you, me, and the Riverton Rovers.' He gazed down into the eyes of the beautiful woman in his arms as she raised her bottle to chink against his. ‘May they be forever stuck in their Mini-Minor, and never get across the line.'