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He bit back a curse. Was that all people could think to converse with him about—his darn job? ‘Yes.’
Another moment’s silence. False start number two. For pity’s sake, he was good at small talk. He opened his mouth. He closed it again. The deep heaviness in his chest grew. Normally he could push it away, ignore it, but today it gave him no quarter. It was this stupid plane strike and the break in his routine. It had given him time to think.
Thinking wouldn’t help anything!
She glanced at him, her face sober, and he knew then that she was going to bring up the subject he most dreaded. He wanted to beg her not to, but years of good breeding prevented him.
‘How are you and your parents now, since your brother...?’
That was a different approach to most, but...The heaviness started to burn and ache. He rested his head back against his seat and tried to stop his lip from curling.
‘I’m sorry. Don’t answer that. It was a stupid thing to ask. Grieving in public must be harrowing. I just wanted to say I’m truly sorry for your loss, Aidan.’
The simple words with their innate sincerity touched him and the burn in his chest eased a fraction. ‘Thank you, Quinn.’
Two beats passed. Quinn shuffled in her seat a little and her ponytail bounced. ‘I’m moving to an olive farm.’
He straightened and turned to her. ‘An olive farm?’
‘Uh-huh.’ She kept her eyes on the road, but she was grinning. ‘I bet that’s not a sentence you hear every day, is it?’
‘It’s not a sentence I have ever heard uttered in my life.’
‘It’s probably not as startling as saying I was moving to an alpaca farm or going to work on a ferret breeding programme. But it’s only a degree or two behind.’
She’d made things good—or, at least, better—just like that. With one abrupt and startling admission. ‘What do you know about olives?’
She lifted her nose in the air. ‘I know that marinated olives on a cheese platter is one of life’s little pleasures.’
He laughed. She glanced at him and her eyes danced. ‘What about you; what do you know about olives?’
‘That they grow on trees. That they make olive oil. And that marinated olives on a cheese platter is one of life’s little pleasures.’
She laughed then too and he couldn’t remember a sound he’d ever enjoyed more. He closed his eyes all the better to savour it. It was the last thing he remembered.
* * *
Aidan sat bolt upright and glanced around. He was alone in the car. He peered at his watch.
He closed his eyes and shook his right arm, but when he opened them again the time hadn’t changed. He’d slept for two hours?
He pressed his palms to his eyes and dragged in a breath before stretching to the right and then the left to ease the cricks in his back and neck. Finally he took stock of his surroundings. Quinn had parked beneath a huge old gum tree to give him shade. At the moment she, Robbie and Chase kicked a ball around on a big oval in front of him. She’d hitched her dress up to mid-thigh into a pair of bike shorts.
His eyes widened. Man, she was...fit!
He shook his head and pressed fingers to his eyes again.
With bones that literally creaked, he pushed out of the car and stretched. Warm air caressed his skin and he slid his suit jacket off to lay it on the front seat. Quinn waved and then pointed behind him to an amenities block. ‘They’re clean and well maintained,’ she called out.
He lifted a hand to let her know he’d heard.
When he returned he found her sitting cross-legged on a blanket at the edge of the oval beside an assortment of bags.
‘Where are we?’
‘Wundowie.’
He pulled out his smart phone and searched for it on the Internet. ‘We’ve been travelling...’
‘Nearly two and a half hours, though we’re still only about an hour out of Perth. There was a lot of traffic,’ she said in answer to his raised eyebrow. ‘And there was some mini-marathon we had to be diverted around.’ She shrugged. ‘It all took time. Would you like a sandwich or an apple?’ She opened a cooler bag and proffered its contents towards him. ‘Or water? There’s plenty here.’
He reached for a bottle of water. ‘Thank you, I’m parched.’
‘But well rested,’ she said with a laugh.
His hand clenched about the water bottle, making the plastic crackle. ‘You should’ve woken me.’
She turned from watching the boys as they continued with their game. ‘Why?’
He opened his mouth. He closed it again and rubbed the nape of his neck. ‘I, uh... It wasn’t very polite.’
‘It wasn’t impolite. You were obviously tired and needed the sleep.’
She selected an apple and crunched into it. ‘Please eat something. It’ll only go to waste and I hate that.’
He took a sandwich. Ham and pickle. ‘Thank you.’ And tried to remember the last time he’d let his guard down so comprehensively as to fall asleep when he hadn’t meant to.
It certainly hadn’t happened since Daniel had died.
His appetite fled. Nevertheless he forced himself to eat the sandwich. He wouldn’t be able to stand the fuss his mother would make if he became ill. And this woman beside him had gone to the trouble of making these sandwiches for her children and herself and had chosen to share them with him. The least he could do was appreciate it.
He and Quinn sat side by side on the grass with their legs stretched out in front of them. They didn’t speak much. A million questions pounded through him, but they were all far too personal and he had no right to ask a single one of them.
But the inactivity grated on him. It didn’t seem to have that effect on Quinn, though. She lifted her face to the sky and closed her eyes as if relishing the sun and the day and the air. Eventually she jumped up again. ‘I’m going to have another run with the boys for a bit. Stretch my legs. Feel free to join in.’
He glanced down at himself. ‘I’m not exactly dressed for it.’
She took in his tie, his tailored trousers and polished leather shoes. ‘No,’ she agreed and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so summarily dismissed. ‘Oh, I meant to tell you earlier that we’re only going as far as Merredin today,’ she shot over her shoulder before racing off towards the boys.
He looked Merredin up on his smart phone. A quick calculation informed him it was only another two hours further on. Surely they could travel further than that in a day? He scowled and started answering email. He might as well do something useful. He made phone calls.
They stayed in Wundowie for another thirty minutes. He chafed to be away the entire time but was careful not to keep glancing at his watch. If they were only going as far as Merredin they’d be there mid-afternoon as it was. An additional half an hour in Wundowie either way wouldn’t much matter.
* * *
Aidan would’ve liked to have kept working when they were back in the car, but he suspected Quinn would consider that bad manners.
He dragged a hand through his hair. What was he thinking? Of course it’d be bad manners. Besides, she and the boys had kept quiet so he could sleep and it hardly seemed fair to continue to expect such ongoing consideration. Especially when they were doing him a favour.
The fact his phone battery was running low decided it. He tucked it away and glanced around to the back seat. ‘Do you boys play a sport?’
‘Soccer,’ said Robbie.
‘Robbie is the best runner on his team,’ Chase said.
Quinn glanced at him. ‘He means fastest.’
Robbie’s mouth turned down. ‘I mightn’t be in my new team.’
Quinn tensed. Aidan tried not to wince. He hadn’t meant to tread into sensitive territory. ‘Uh...’ He searched for something to say.
‘Do you play sport?’ Robbie asked.
‘Not any more.’ And all of a sudden his heart felt heavy as a stone again.
‘Why are you on the television?’ Chase demanded to know. ‘Mum said she’d seen you.’
‘Because of my job. I’m a politician so I go on television to tell people how I’d run the country if they vote for me.’
Robbie frowned. ‘Do you like your job?’
A bitter taste lined his mouth. ‘Sure I do.’
‘What do you do?’
‘Well, I go into my office most days and I go to lots of meetings and...’ Endless meetings. It took an effort of will to keep the tiredness out of his voice. ‘I go on the television and talk on the radio and talk to newspaper reporters so they can tell all the people about the things I think would make our country run better. I have people who work for me and we draft up proposals for new policies.’
‘Wouldn’t being a fireman be more fun?’
‘A fireman would be excellent fun,’ he agreed. Lord, his mother would have a fit! He almost laughed.
‘When you’re finished being a politician maybe you could be a fireman,’ Chase said.
‘And then you could play soccer too,’ added Robbie.
He didn’t know how those two things were linked. He glanced at Quinn for direction. She merely smiled at him.
‘Mum, can we play one of our CDs now?’
‘I did promise the boys we’d play one of our CDs on this leg of our journey. We burned a few especially.’
‘I don’t mind.’ It’d save him searching for topics of conversation.
‘We sing pretty loud.’
‘You don’t need to apologise about that.’
For some reason that made her grin. ‘You haven’t heard our singing yet.’
He forced himself to smile.
She slipped a CD into the player. ‘The Purple People-Eater’ immediately blasted from the speakers and his three companions burst into loud accompaniment, the boys laughing throughout most of the song. That was followed by ‘Llama Llama Duck’ and then ‘My Boomerang Won’t Come Back’.
He stared at her. ‘You have to be joking me?’
‘Fun novelty songs are our favourite.’ Her grin was so wide it almost split her face. ‘If there’s a doo-wop or chirpy-chirpy-cheep-cheep to be had then we love it.’
Hell, that was what this was. Absolute hell. He slunk down in his seat and stared straight out in front of him as the songs came at him in a relentless round. ‘This isn’t music!’ He glared at the road. ‘You could’ve warned me about this back in Perth.’ No way would he have got into the car with her then.
Then he thought of his mother.
Quinn merely sang, ‘I’m a yummy, tummy, funny, lucky gummy bear,’ with extra gusto.
He closed his eyes, but this time sleep eluded him.
CHAPTER TWO
THEY REACHED MERREDIN ninety minutes later. It had felt like ninety hours. Aidan had endured forty minutes of the ‘Monster Mash’, ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ and many more novelty songs, which was enough to last him a lifetime. Twenty minutes of I Spy had followed and then a further thirty minutes of the number plate game. There was only one rule to the game, as far as he could tell, and that was who could make up the silliest phrase from the letters of a passing number plate.
PHH. Penguin haircuts here. Purple Hoovering hollyhocks. Pasta hates ham.
LSL. Larks sneeze loudly. Little snooty limpets. Lace scissored loquaciously.
CCC. Cream cake central. Can’t clap cymbals. Cool cooler coolest.
And on and on and on it went, like some kind of slow Chinese water torture. His temples throbbed and an ache stretched behind his eyes. He didn’t join in.
He sat up straighter though when Quinn eased the car down the town’s main street. He glanced up at the sky. There was another four hours of daylight left yet. Another four hours of good driving time.
Manners prevented him from pointing this out. Biting back something less than charitable, he studied the few shops on offer. Maybe he’d be able to hire a car of his own out here?
Quinn parked the car in the main street and turned off the motor. ‘The boys and I are staying at the caravan park, but I figured you’d be more comfortable at the motel.’
A caravan park? He suppressed a shudder. Again, he didn’t say anything. Quinn was obviously on a tight budget.
She and the boys all but bounced out of the car. Aidan found his limbs heavy and lethargic. It took an effort of will to make them move. He wondered where Quinn found all her energy. Maybe she took vitamins. Unbidden, an image of her racing around the soccer oval in her bike shorts and dress rose up through him and for some reason his throat tightened.
He glanced up to find her watching him. He felt worn and weary, but her ponytail still bounced and her cheeks were pink and pretty. She waited, as if expecting him to say something, and then she merely shrugged. ‘The motel is just across the road.’ She pointed. ‘We’ll collect you at nine in the morning.’
He snapped to and retrieved his overnight bag from the back of the wagon. ‘I’ll be ready earlier. Say six or seven if you wanted to get an early start.’
‘Nine o’clock,’ she repeated, and he suddenly had the impression she was laughing at him.
She swung back to the boys. ‘Right!’ She clapped her hands. ‘Chase, I need you to find me a packet of spaghetti and, Robbie, I need you to find me a tin of tomatoes.’
As they walked away he heard Chase ask, ‘What are you looking for?’
‘Minced meat and garlic bread.’ And they all disappeared into the nearby supermarket.
He’d been summarily dismissed. Again.
From a grocery trip? He shook the thought off and headed across the road to the motel.
His room was adequate. Merredin might be the regional centre for Western Australia’s wheat belt, but as far as he was concerned it wasn’t much more than a two-horse town and his early enquiries about hiring a car proved less than encouraging.
He strode back to his motel room, set his phone to charge and then flipped open his laptop and searched Google Maps. He frowned. What the heck...? If they kept travelling at this pace it’d take them two weeks to drive across the country!
His hands clenched for a moment. Counting to three, he unclenched them and pulled a writing pad from his briefcase and started to plot a route across the continent. He spread out a map he’d grabbed from the motel’s reception and marked logical break points where he and Quinn could swap driving duties.
That took all of twenty minutes. He closed his laptop and glanced about his room. There didn’t seem to be much more to do. He wandered about the room, opening the wardrobe doors and the desk drawer. He made a coffee that he didn’t drink. He reached for his cell phone to call his mother, stared at it for a moment and then shoved it back onto its charger.
Flopping back onto the bed, he stared at the ceiling for what seemed like an eon. When he glanced at his watch, though, he cursed. What on earth was he going to do for the rest of the afternoon, let alone the rest of the night?
He raised himself to his elbows. He could go and find Quinn and the boys.
Why would you do that?
He sat up and drummed his fingers against his thighs, before shooting to his feet. He tore the page from his writing pad and stalked from the room.
It didn’t take him long to find the caravan park. And it didn’t take him long to locate Robbie and Chase either. They played—somewhat rowdily—on a playground fort in primary colours so bright they hurt his eyes. And then he saw Quinn. She sat cross-legged on a blanket beside a nearby caravan, and something about her sitting in the afternoon light soothed his eyes.
‘Hey, Aidan,’ she called out when she saw him. ‘Feeling at a loose end, huh?’
He rolled his shoulders. ‘I’m just exploring. Thought I’d come see where you were camped.’
She lifted her face to the sun. ‘This is a nice spot, isn’t it?’
It was? He glanced around, searching for whatever it was that she found ‘nice’, but he came up blank.
‘I thought you’d be busy catching up on all of your work.’
It hit him that in amongst all of his restlessness it hadn’t occurred to him to ring back into the office. They knew he was delayed, but...
It didn’t mean he had to stop working. There’d still be the usual endless round of email that needed answering. He could’ve set up meetings for this evening on Skype.
The thought of all that work made him feel as tired as the idea of ringing his mother. When Quinn gestured to the blanket he fell down onto it, grateful for the respite.
He had no right feeling so exhausted. He’d done next to nothing all day. He shook himself in an effort to keep the moroseness at bay, glanced around as if he were curious about his surroundings. If he pretended well enough, maybe he’d start to feel a flicker of interest and intent again. Maybe. ‘Are you planning to stay in caravan parks for all of your journey?’
‘You bet.’
He kept his face smooth, but somehow she saw through him and threw her head back with a laugh. ‘Not your idea of a good time, I see.’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’ He wasn’t a snob, but... Walking to an amenity block when he could have an en suite bathroom? No, thanks.
‘Only because you’re incredibly polite.’
She made that sound like an insult.
‘Look about you, Aidan. This place caters to children far better than your motel does. Most caravan parks do. Look at all that open green space over there. The boys can kick a ball around to their hearts’ content. And then there’s that playground, which I might add is fenced.’
In those eye-gouging primary colours.
‘Robbie is old enough not to wander off, but Chase is still easily distracted.’
He straightened when he realised this place gave her peace of mind. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘And there’re usually other children around for them to play with too.’
He watched another two children approach the playground.
‘Most people here won’t mind a bit of noise from the children, but I bet you’re glad we’re not staying in the room next to yours at the motel.’
He rolled his shoulders. ‘It’s not a bad noise. It’s just a bit of laughing and shouting.’
She raised her eyebrows.
‘But I take your point.’
‘It’d be hard to get any work done with all that noise.’
There she was, talking about work again.
He promptly pulled the itinerary he’d plotted out for them from his pocket along with the map and smoothed them on the rug between them. ‘I thought that tomorrow we could make it as far as Balladonia. If we wanted to take two-hour shifts driving, which is what all the driver reviver and driving safety courses recommend, then we could change here, here and here.’ He pointed out the various locations on the map.
Quinn leaned back on her hands and laughed. ‘I’ve seen this movie. In this particular scenario you’re Sally and I’m Harry, right?’
He stared at her. What on earth was she talking about?
‘When Harry Met Sally,’ she said when he remained silent. ‘The movie? You know? Sally who’s a bit uptight and super-organised and Harry who’s casual and laidback?’
He searched for something to say.
‘There’s a scene early in the movie when they’re driving across America together and...’ Her voice lost steam. ‘You haven’t seen the movie?’
He shook his head.
Her face fell. ‘But it’s one of the classic rom-coms of all time.’
For some reason he felt compelled to apologise. ‘I’m sorry.’
And for some reason he couldn’t fathom that made her smile again, only it wasn’t the kind of smile that reached her eyes. She touched his map and shook her head. ‘No.’
He blinked. ‘No?’ But...
She laughed and he could see it was partly in frustration with him, but she didn’t do it in a mean way. She rested back on her hands again. ‘Aidan, you really need to learn to relax and chill out a bit.’
And just like that she reminded him of Daniel.
It should’ve hurt him.
But it didn’t.
* * *
‘I...’
He stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. Or as if no one had ever told him to slow down and smell the roses. He stared at her as if that very concept was totally alien.
She bit back a sigh. This trip—spending time with her boys and doing all she could to make this transition in their lives exciting and easy—was important to her. Taking pity on Aidan and inviting him to join them had thrown the dynamic off more than she’d anticipated. She’d promised the boys a holiday and she wasn’t going back on her word.
And eight hours a day driving wasn’t a holiday in anybody’s vocabulary.
‘We probably should’ve compared notes about the kind of travelling we were expecting to do before we left Perth.’ How could he know she meant to take it slow if she hadn’t explained it to him? He was obviously in a hurry, but... ‘It didn’t occur to me at the time.’ She moistened her lips. ‘But we’re obviously working on two different timetables here.’
Her stomach churned. He was probably used to everyone rushing around at a million miles an hour. That was what people from his world—her parents’ world—did.
Don’t hold that against him. It doesn’t make him like your parents.
‘I made enquiries in town to see if I could hire a car of my own.’
She swallowed. It’d be one solution to the problem. ‘And?’
‘No luck, I’m afraid.’
‘I see.’
‘You’re regretting taking me on as a passenger.’ He said it simply, without rancour, but there was such exhaustion stretching through his voice it was all she could do to not reach across and clasp his hand and to tell him he was mistaken. Only...
She glanced across at her boys, now happily playing with the newcomers to the playground. A fierce mixture of love and fear swirled through her. Pushing her shoulders back, she met his stare again. Pussyfooting around would only lead to more misunderstandings. ‘Aidan, you’ve been unfailingly polite, but you haven’t really been all that friendly.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
He gritted his teeth so hard his mouth turned white. She hated being the reason for that expression, but she soldiered on all the same, hoping she wasn’t punishing him for the reminders of the past that he’d unwittingly brought rushing back to her. ‘You didn’t join in on our singalong. You didn’t play I Spy or the number plate game.’
He stared at her. For someone groomed to project and maintain a certain image, he looked all at sea. ‘Please don’t tell me you want to part company here in this two-horse town.’
‘Of course not!’ How could he think she’d abandon him like that?
‘Once we reach Adelaide I’ll make other arrangements.’
‘Okay.’ She bit her thumbnail for a moment, unable to look at him. Adelaide was still six or possibly seven days away yet. If she could make him see how important this trip was...well, then, he might make more of an effort to fit in. Maybe.
She stretched her legs out in front of her. ‘You know what I think? I think we should break the ice a little. I think we should ask the questions that have been itching through us and get that all out of the way.’
He looked so utterly appalled she had to bite her lip to stop from laughing. This man took self-contained to a whole new level. ‘Or, better yet, why don’t we tell each other something we think the other wants to know?’
His expression didn’t change but she ignored it to clap her hands. ‘Yes, that’ll be much more fun. I’ll go first, shall I?’ she rushed on before he could object. She crossed her legs again. ‘I’m going to tell you why Robbie, Chase and I are on a road trip across the continent.’
He shifted, grew more alert. She could tell from the way his eyes focused on her and his shoulders straightened. Oh, he was appalled still, of course, but she hoped his curiosity would eventually conquer his resistance.
‘The olive farm is in the Hunter Valley wine district and it belongs to my aunt. She’s the black sheep of the family.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘And I happen to take after her.’
‘Your family consider you a black sheep?’
A question! She schooled her features to hide her triumph. ‘Actually, in all honesty, I’d be very surprised if my parents thought about me at all these days. They’re from Sydney. I became pregnant with Robbie when I was eighteen. They wanted me to go to university and carve out some mythically brilliant career. When I decided to have my baby instead, they cut me off.’