HOT SET: Playing with Fidelity (A romantic suspense novel) (26 page)

Kate
was sitting in the seat behind Dave who was driving, looking over his shoulder at the road. It was 2 am and everyone else was asleep but Kate just couldn’t. The lines painted on the bitumen road slid rhythmically beside the bus, hypnotising Kate even deeper into her troubled thoughts.

She was a mess. She held the disk tightly in her hands, her fingers running over the
roughened crystalline surface. There wasn’t enough light to examine it again, but she didn’t need to, she’d memorised it so perfectly, it’d remain in her mind’s eye til she died.

What had happened at the waterhole had frightened her.
Kate had never been in close proximity with the spirit world and it had unhinged her. And what about what Kyeema had said? What was with the disk? Why had she been given it in the first place? I mean, it wasn’t right to take away a piece of Uluru so maybe she should have cast it into the waterhole or something?
Bloody fantastic, now I’ve stolen a piece of sacred land, too
.

She wanted to ask someone else but how do you say,
“this Aboriginal woman turned up at the water hole, told me I’d be in pain, that the seasons were turning, then disappeared into a puff of ether. Oh, and she left me this…”

Exhaustion finally won and as
Kate drifted off, her dreams were of giant, ancient people walking across the land, carving the surface with enormous feet, raising some of it up into mountains and some into valleys, allowing life-giving water to flow in the clefts of earth.

They arrived at the Resort at 4am. Unpacking the bus was left until daylight and
Kate slopped onto her bed.

She was awakened by a heavy pounding on her door. Her eyes just wouldn’t cooperate and it took several more thuds and a loud, “Kate!” for her to force her eyelids open a slit to notice the time was 9:48am.

“
SHIT!” She bounded out of the bed and hollered that she was up and would be out in a minute. The person stopped pounding.

Racing into the bathroom, she threw water on her face and hair to smooth it down before looking to the
tiny mirror above the cracked sink and yelled with horror at the unholy reflection. Her normally messy but relatively controlled curls were now a huge bird’s nest on the back of her head. No amount of water was going to fix the monster knot of the century that jutted out behind her right ear. Her big, black eyes were extremely puffy and blood shot and her skin an unhealthy shade of yellow.

“
Damn, that’s awful.” But there was nothing she could do.

She undid her pants and as they hit the
lino floor, she heard the
thunk
of something weighty. The medallion. She rummaged quickly for the disk and running across the room, ripped a clean pair of pants and a wrinkled shirt out, pulling them on as she ran to the door. She was doing up the pants at the same time as opening the door and blushed when Barry’s nerdy face greeted her through the exit.

“
I’m so sorry!” She pushed the medallion into her pants and finished adjusting her clothes. Barry started walking away.

“
Shoes!” Running inside, she grabbed a pair of flip-flops and slipping them onto her feet, closed the door, ran down the two steps and fell into step beside Barry.

“
You should have been on set 45 minutes ago. It’s our last full day of filming out here and don’t have time for this…” and he continued to berate her as they walked across camp and Kate, already feeling like regurgitated dog food, was now downright upset. She knew Barry was stressed, too but in her fragile state, she just wasn’t able to shrug it off and tears filled her eyes.

They were crossing the car park and thankfully Barry had stopped talking, when a
hire car pulled up slowly into the car park right in front of them. The passenger door opened and a thinner, but otherwise hearty, Rhys stepped out her side, with Mira exiting the other.

They stared
at each other for a moment, taking in the obvious changes the last few days had wrought on them both. They both smiled little, welcoming smiles.

“
Hey,” Rhys said.

“
Hey, back,” Kate responded, so pathetically relieved to see him. “How’re you doing?”

“
Better. Once the fever broke, I made a quick recovery. I wanted out yesterday but they settled for first thing this morning instead.”

“
Both of you need to be on set, immediately. Catch-up later.”

“
Good to see you’re back in full cranky form, Barry. I was worried you may have softened up out here.”

Barry was about to give him an earful when he realised he didn’t have the time and he stomped off down to the river.

“Make-up for both of you, RIGHT NOW!” he called over his shoulder.

Kate
took a step but was stopped by the gentle pressure of Rhys’s hand on her upper arm.

“
Are you okay?”

“
Yeah, fine. We’d better get going.”

“
I’m here if you wanna talk, okay.”

She fought the urge to cry and hurried off to the
make-up caravan with Rhys eyeing off her scary hair in mystification. He paid the driver plus added $100 for his trouble and picking up his bag, followed Mira to his cabin before going to make-up himself.

The day did not go well.
It’d taken Brian, the hair stylist, ten-minutes and half a bottle of leave-in conditioner just to comb out Kate’s hair so she was really late. The principle actors were tired and lines kept getting fluffed, there were multiple technical glitches and Barry and Mac, normally a cohesive team, were at each other’s throats and contradicting each other’s instructions. It was when a lighting tripod was knocked over and it smashed the spot light that Mac roared and stomped off behind some trees.

People stood on the spot, not knowing whether to continue or not and
Kate put her hands in her pockets and fingered the medallion for comfort. She was already relying on it and she felt calmer every time her thumb swept across the coarse surface. Then the words, “the seasons are turning” filtered into her mind and she wondered how things could get worse. She pulled her hand out of her pocket.

Mac came
back after a 15-minute cool down which had given everyone else a breather.

“
Back to work, slackers.”

T
hey canned as much film as they could before the light gave up. Things had started to be packed up and put into the trucks. Remaining tents were pulled down, tables packed away and the Resort was returning to its pre-chaotic state. Once it became too dark to work, people ate and started gathering at the fire.

Every
available inch of space around the fire was taken up by the filmies, staring spellbound at the flames, taking in the last opportunities to do so on their last night in Central Australia. They’d been here for five weeks, had adjusted to the heat, flies and rough conditions and everyone now had the Australian desert well under their skin. Even the histrionic Nadia was subdued that night and realising what an opportunity it’d been, was happy it’d turned out after all; even better since she’d located the source of the dope and had become bed buddies with Marcus. After the energy of the day was spent, people were nice to each other that night, talking nostalgically, sharing around junk food and joking, sad it was over.

Kate
was deep in thought, still upset by what happened at Ulu
r
u. Not usually one to get so emotionally fraught, she wasn’t coping and was anxious and withdrawn. The medallion was pressing against her leg, reminding her of the frightening events from yesterday but she dared not touch it for fear someone would ask where it came from. She was so tired from the long day, the bad sleep, the guilt... She stood up without a word and left the camp, heading towards the river, desperate for some peace.

The night was friendlier
here than at the Ulu
r
u-Kata Tju
t
a National Park, she noticed. It wasn’t charged with energy like Ulu
r
u is. The stars were again Kate’s crown and the fresh breeze skimmed across her bare arms, as though trying to reassure her. She shivered and rubbed her arms before digging into her pocket for the medallion.

In the faint moonlight, she turned over the disk in her hands, analysing it, mentally asking it and by extension, the
Ancestors for help, but it didn’t respond; not that she really expected it to. It was just a piece of rock after all.

So why…

A crunch of gravel behind her spun her around and Rhys was there.

“
You okay?” he asked.

“
Fine. How about you?”

“
Fit as a fiddle. Oh, and I might be pretty dense with women, but I do know when she says ‘fine’, she’s anything but.”

Kate
didn’t answer.

“
There is something really bothering you. I’ve never seen you so off the planet. Am happy to listen.”

Kate
was still silent. She was looking intensely across the broad river bed while sliding the medallion from hand to hand. She wanted to talk desperately; she was exhausted from carrying it all by herself. Rhys, to his credit, stood patiently next to her and just waited. After an interminable minute, she simply passed him the disk. He examined it.

“
It’s nice. Where’d you get it?

“
At Ulu
r
u. A spirit gave it to me.”

“
A spirit?”

“
Well, I don’t really think she was a spirit… but she was definitely in cahoots with them and she said weird things to me then disappeared just as everyone was coming and left this behind on the railing at the waterhole and she told me the seasons were turning and I was really freaked out and I still am and I didn’t sleep at all thinking about it and I’m so tired and then I saw you and I felt so much better which is really bad because I’m not supposed to be glad to see you and I just want this whole trip to be over and-”

Rhys
grabbed her and pulled her into a tight hug, shutting her up with his warmth and strength. It was the first time they’d been so closely physical and Kate slumped in his arms, fitting perfectly, relaxing immediately, feeling so at home and comforted.

So, t
o her eternal shame, she burst into tears.

There was nothing dainty about the snotty, shivery sobs she smeared across his
hard chest. Kate quite literally poured all her cares into his thick cotton t-shirt, her shoulders heaving with the effort of release. Rhys held her head, his fingers threaded through her hair while the other was around her waist. While not used to people dumping their stress so noisily, nonetheless, with Kate in his arms, a rush of concern and fear made him cuddle her tighter and drop his chin on her head.

They stood in the dark holding each other for a long time, just feeling; just touching.
Kate had no more water left in her whole body and the front of Rhys’s shirt was embarrassingly wet and yet they remained. Rhys was stroking her loose hair, smoothing it down as the breeze lifted it up.

“
So, do you want to start again?”Rhys asked.

And so
Kate, still held safely against him, told him what had happened. To unload it was fantastic.

“
Wow, freaky.”

“
I don’t know if I was supposed to take the medallion with me.”

“
I don’t think she would have left it there if she didn’t want you to take it.”

“
So you believe me, then?”

“
Why wouldn’t I?”

“
Um, because I’ve just told you I saw spirits?”

“
I believe there is an alternate world we can’t see.”

“
Really?”

“
Sure. There are far too many unexplained things that happen. What happened to you sounds weird but I know you’re not someone to make things up.”

She was quiet for a moment, listening to his heartbeat, wondering why she was still hugging him
, yet glad she was.

“
Thanks for not thinking I’m a loony. So what do you think she meant?”

“
Well, I think it was a warning, but I don’t think you can do anything about it.”

“
Great.” She sounded deflated and looked up at him to ask another question when she saw how close his face was. The familiar lust crawled along her skin. It was happening again and this time, she didn’t want to stop it.

If she was going to feel pain, she may as well feel pleasure, too.

She boldly lifted her hands up his chest and gripped his shirt to pull him down. This time, he was going to kiss her and to hell with the consequences. He tightened his arms around her and lifted her up, ready to finally taste her. They were millimetres from making contact, zinging from the chemistry and anticipation, their breath merging, their eyes closed.