Mountain Ash (16 page)

‘So we have to get a fire going, put a billy on, wheel our partners in that barrow over those planks, jump on a bike each and ride around the obstacle course, stack those bales of hay and be back here in time for the billy to boil for a cup of tea?' Jodie knew she sounded incredulous, but surely that was asking a bit much?

‘Looks like it,' said Wal, sounding glum. ‘I thought my days of carting hay were over. You sure you want to do this, mate?'

‘I'm sure,' said Nate. His gaze landed on Jodie's lips. ‘I have a debt to collect.'

‘Would all contestants please line up at the start?' blared the loudspeaker. A bright spark had found some old racing starting gates so it was two to a barrier for the Ironman Classic and all the gates were full. Evidently it was a popular event.

‘Ready, set,
go!
' roared the crowd.

Jodie was pushing the barrow filled with sticks and Stacey. ‘Go, Ashie!' yelled her mate. It was hard going because
Stacey wasn't a light girl. Jodie could see out the corner of her eye that Nate wasn't having any easier a time of it with Wal in the barrow. She focused back on her own race. They were at the circle of stones that indicated the campfire. Stacey was out of the barrow and down on her hands and knees building a pile of kindling. Jodie ran to the river with the billy and filled it up. She saw Nate doing the same so she gave him a shove, sending him into the water.

‘Why you little minx!' he yelled, dripping but grinning.

She raced back up the bank. Stacey had the little fire going and was on her hands and knees blowing to make it flare more. They slung the billy on a right-angled piece of iron put there for the purpose and raced off with the wheelbarrow again. Across planks, back and forth, until they came to the pushbikes. Grabbing one each the two girls pedalled off to make their way around a course filled with people firing water pistols, throwing soft balls and wielding enormous foam spatulas at all the contestants. Jodie came to grief at the spatulas. One managed to stop her dead in her tracks, causing her to fall off the bike. She lay on the ground winded, only to stagger to her feet when she heard Nate fly wetly by, yelling, ‘That kiss is already tasting good!'

Wal and Nate were on to stacking their hay bales when Jodie and Stacey finally threw away their bikes. ‘I don't know if I can do this,' said a gasping Jodie.

‘All the better for me,' said Stacey. ‘I'll have a go at Nate then move on to that other dish coming up behind us.'

Jodie swung around to see a man with scarlet hair and a million freckles pounding down the finishing strait of the obstacle course. Obviously he'd decided his legs were preferable to two wheels. ‘Him?'

‘Yep. He's really rather nice,' said Stace. ‘But I think Nate would prefer you, so on your feet. I'm a gun at stacking bales.'

And she was. In fact Jodie decided the girl was
made
to stack bales. In no time she had that little hay stack so tight and trim it even put Wal's tidy cube to shame.

It only seemed like five minutes and Jodie was in the wheelbarrow with Stacey pushing her back over the planks to their fire. Someone had kept it nicely banked while they were away so it was a boiling billy that greeted them on their return. ‘Quick. We need to make a cup of tea,' said Jodie. But now they were back at the fire Stacey seemed to go into slow motion. She fumbled with the cup, dropped the tea bag in the dirt, couldn't find anything to drag the kettle off the iron pole.

‘Hurry up, Stace! They'll beat us!' Jodie could see Wal had his and Nate's mugs set to go.

‘I just can't quite get this billy off the pole,' said Stacey.

Jodie had her cup and tea bag ready and waiting.

A roar went up from the crowd as a pair of competitors further up the line yelled with glee, followed by another lot, then a few more. Seconds later Wal and Nate clinked their cups together and took a slurp.

‘Damn it,' yelled Jodie.

‘Oh. Did we lose?' said Stacey, feigning innocence.

Jodie swung round. ‘You
meant
to lose, didn't you?'

‘Moi?' said Stacey, pointing to herself. ‘I hate losing.' But her grin gave her away.

Jodie could see Nate coming towards her, an intent expression on his face. ‘How much did he pay you?'

Stacey looked upwards, sidewards, down at her feet, but it was no good. She couldn't stop giggling. ‘He didn't
pay
me. He just gave me my heart's desire. Randall? Oh, Randall?' she
called to the red-haired gangly creature they'd last seen running down the straight. ‘Let me introduce Randall. He works for Nate and Wal's boss at their new job. They met him last night.
And
he's single.' Stacey's eyelashes fluttered.

Jodie looked to the sky and found Nate there instead. ‘I do believe you owe me a kiss,' he said. And before she could deny it he had her in his sodden but still-warm arms. His lips came down towards her own; he was single-minded, intent. And then she was lost. He was so soft, so hard, so demanding, so beseeching all at once. Any thoughts of her fleeing scattered to the wind. She could only hang on to a broad set of shoulders while she drowned under his touch. His lips, tongue and breath sought her own, claimed them. He was sweet, intoxicating: she couldn't get enough.

The breath had gone from her lungs and she was gasping for air by the time he let her go.

‘Well,' said Stace. ‘Now I wish
we'd
won. I could've got a load of that.'

‘Randall will gladly oblige, I'm sure,' said Wal. He was still sipping his tea but his eyes were twinkling.

Jodie couldn't say a word. Her body was incapable of doing anything at that moment and, by the look on Nate's face, she thought he might be having the same problem.

‘C'mon then, Randall, kiss me,' said Stacey, closing her eyes.

The red-haired man had the look of a cornered chicken. He jumped forwards, pecked Stacey on the lips and jumped back, blushing.

Stacey opened her eyes and glared at him. ‘That was not a kiss. You need to take some lessons from the maestro here.' She pointed to Nate. ‘Then again, maybe I'll just teach you myself. C'mon.' She dragged the poor man off by the shirt. ‘Let's go find a swag.'

‘And I'm going to find a taxi to take me to a nice cosy corner to listen to some races,' said Wal. ‘All this kissing's too much for my ticker. Come get me from the pub down the street in a couple of hours, will ya, Nate?' The old fellow wandered off.

That left Nate and Jodie. Standing. Looking at anything but each other.

‘Feel like something to eat?' Nate asked finally.

Jodie considered that. She
was
hungry but for more of those kisses. She gave herself a mental headslap; she didn't need to go muddying the waters any further. ‘I don't think –'

‘C'mon, Ash, the bet was a joke.'

It didn't feel like a joke. And perversely she didn't
want
it to be a joke. That kiss was amazing.
You're taken, woman!

‘Yes, a joke.' So it didn't mean anything. Why did that hurt? ‘Okay, I'll have something to eat with you. Where shall we go?'

Nate scratched his head. ‘There's a Sunday parade on down the street followed by music in the park. Would you like to head to that? There'll be food there. I'll have to change first.' He indicated his sopping wet gear.

Jodie laughed and nodded. A parade and music meant people and that was good. Perhaps she wouldn't want to kiss him any more. ‘I'll grab my wallet and meet you at your ute.'

From high upon a hill, and beside hundreds of families, they watched the one hundredth anniversary procession and shared a bag of fish and chips. It was like the whole town had come out to see the grand old place turn a century. ‘I heard a woman say that the town was named after a place in South Australia,' said Nate.

‘What it must be like to have that kind of history in your family,' replied Ash. ‘To stay in the one place so long.'

Nate sensed the wistfulness in her tone. ‘You don't have historical ties to where you live?'

Ash gave a half laugh. ‘No. Not even a little bit.'

‘I do,' admitted Nate. ‘But it doesn't help at all so I wouldn't wish it on you.' He knew he sounded bitter and didn't mean to.

They sat in silence for a time, watching kids roll past on their pushbikes. The bikes were decorated with multi-coloured streamers woven through the spokes and balloons flying off the seats – and the children themselves were dressed as clowns. When she'd seen the effort they'd gone to, Ash had given them a cheer. She obviously really liked kids. That appealed to him a lot.

‘I always wanted a BMX,' confessed Nate as he watched a boy do some tricks on his.

‘You never got one?'

‘No, the old man didn't think it a worthy way to spend my pocket money. I had to buy a horse instead. That was more useful.' He sighed.

‘Are your parents still alive?'

‘Mum's not. The old man is. Kinda the wrong way round really.'

‘You don't get on with him?'

‘He's a hard-hearted bastard who chucked me out of home, so no, not really.'

‘That's a shame,' she said quietly. ‘Where are you from exactly?'

He contemplated telling her the truth. But what was the point? With his mother gone, it didn't really feel like home any more. ‘No place in particular.'

‘So you move around then?'

‘Yes. I stay working on a station for a while but then move on. New horizons to see, new people to meet.' Yeah, like it was all beer and skittles this going from one place to the next, but if he let her know what he'd really been thinking lately – settling down – it might scare her off.

‘A lot of station workers up north are like that, aren't they?'

‘It gets boring doing the same thing year in, year out. You got to have a new horizon to look at every once in a while.' Who was he trying to kid? He'd love to be settled in one place, making a go of a life's dream, a property like Glenevelyn.

‘So you just get up and leave?'

‘Well, yeah. If the work's done for the year and I'm sick of being there, I move on. You see a lot of country that way, although at the last place I stayed a bit longer.' Too long as it turned out.

‘Isn't it unsettling, all this moving around?'

‘Not really. I don't do staying in one place well. Get an itch to get back on the road, see what life's going to throw at me next.'

‘So it's usually just you and your ute?' She was looking at him intently, like there was something riding on the answer. He wondered what it was.

‘Pretty much. And old Rupert, my dog. He's back at the vehicle. He likes checking out new places too.' Yeah right. Rupe would be in heaven if he could just flop down on a sunny doorstep and never move again.

‘So you just throw your stuff in and go? See you later alligator, let's hit the track and not look back – all that kind of stuff?'

Nate stared at Ash. Her tone was challenging, almost verging on sarcastic, and for the life of him he couldn't work out why.

‘Pretty much. My bag can just about pack itself I've moved around so much.'

The girl beside him didn't say anything more for a while. Just stared intently out across the town. He followed her gaze and it seemed as though she was tracking the kids on their bikes and the bright streamers that were flapping in the breeze.

Finally she said, ‘Don't you ever feel like you want a place to set down roots, a proper home?'

‘Home isn't a definitive place for me.' Yeah right. So why was he heading in the direction of Glenevelyn?

Ash sighed. ‘Because of your estranged family, I mean your father, I guess.' He wasn't sure if she was asking a question or stating a fact so he didn't say anything.

‘I adored my father but he passed away last year.'

‘I'm sorry to hear it.' And he was. She sounded so sad and he could see those silvery-blue eyes had welled with tears, damn it. He hadn't meant for that to happen. He was supposed to be seducing her. ‘What about your mum?'

Ash laughed. ‘Oh, she's just fine. Fighting fit. Lives up in Queensland having a great life.'

‘Sounds like my old man. We should introduce them to each other.' But then his father already had a woman. A young, gold-digging chicky-babe.

‘My mother would eat him right up. She goes through men like most women go through chocolate.'

‘Sounds like a match made in heaven.'

A series of air horns filled the air, drowning out whatever Ash said in response. Anyone who owned a truck in the Snowy Mountains was driving it down Riverton's main street. It took ten minutes for the cacophony of noise to finally stop. By then it was the end of the parade and time for carnival and music in the streets.

They walked back down the hill towards the river, where they could hear the bands starting to play. ‘Want to dance, Ms Ash?' invited Nate once they made it to the spot where many other couples were doing just that. Though he'd made sure to keep his distance up on the hill, it was killing him not to touch her. Every time she laughed and those dimples adorned her cheeks he just wanted to go after them with his lips. He wanted more of those kisses he'd got this morning. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her close. If dancing was the way to do it without frightening her off then that's what he was going to do.