Jo Leigh - Men In Uniform - Taken By The Soldier

Romy looked out the side window, reining in a chuckle she knew would get her in trouble.

‘What? Why stop sharing your thoughts now?’ His sarcasm was barely contained.

‘That’s extreme cooking.’ Her laugh bubbled out. ‘You really suck the marrow out of life, don’t you, McLeish?’

He looked annoyed. ‘I don’t do it to be adventurous.’

‘Why do you do it?’

The silence fell between them like autumn leaves. His eyes blazed. The ute’s old dash clock ticked.

‘Just to feel something.’

She stared at him. A moment ago she’d been envious of the man who lived a no-fear life. Imagining how good that would feel. Now, suddenly, she was responding to the raw awkwardness in his eyes. Clint McLeish and his emotions didn’t spend a lot of time communing, it seemed. She opened her mouth to ask him more.

‘We’re here.’ He pulled the ute off the track near a stand of banksia and marri trees.

The silence of the bush after the conversation in the car was striking. But then Romy heard the raucous, happy grumbling high above. She tilted her head and scanned the thick branches. Once she saw one, more and more came into focus. Enormous black cockatoos with a flame of red on their long sweeping tails, settling in for the night, high in the treetops.

‘Is this where they nest?’

He shook his head. ‘This is where they roost each night. They have nesting sites scattered all over the region, but Far Reach is a favoured site and generations of red-tails will teach their young to return to this gully to feed and roost as soon as they leave the nest.’

She stared all around, thinking about how deep in the property they were, considering how high in the trees the birds were roosting. Anyone who came here with theft on their mind would have some hurdles to overcome. That made her job easier.

‘Thank you for bringing me. This is important for me to see.’

‘These guys are one of the reasons I returned to WildSprings. I consider them my surrogate family. No-one messes with my family.’

She looked at him and believed it. Even removed from his military context there was still something inherently dangerous about the way he moved, the way he assessed everything around him. The way he missed nothing. She wouldn’t want to cross him.

‘Why don’t you have a family of your own?’ The question slipped out before she’d really thought about the ramifications.

He glanced at her. ‘Women and children are a bit thin on the ground around here in case you hadn’t noticed.’

‘I’m sure there’d be a few bold contenders in town prepared to put up with your surly stares.’ Was that a smile? Hard to tell—it morphed into a determined frown way too quickly.

‘I guess I’m not family material.’ He shrugged.

Her snort was critically unladylike. ‘Are you serious? You’re a born provider, you’re practically the kid whisperer and you’d look good at any parent-and-teacher night fighting them off with a stick.’ She blushed furiously at what she’d just admitted. She cleared her throat. ‘So…shall we head back?’

He watched her for a moment, followed her glance out to the darkening skies, then turned for the ute. Romy threw one final look into treetops littered with black-feathered shapes. To the wrong sort of mind, they would look like plump wads of cash growing on trees.

Her planned perimeter checks mentally doubled.

‘The kid whisperer, huh?’ He started the ute.

‘You don’t think so?’

‘I’m not very…comfortable with children. Haven’t had a lot of positive experiences.’

‘Well, they like you. Leighton does, anyway. He’s practically got a crush.’

There. That twist of full lips was unquestionably a smile.

She slid into the passenger seat and risked a glance at Clint’s unreadable profile. Stirring him was a little bit like poking a lion with a stick. Really not advised. But he was smiling, not snarling. Despite his closed-off concentration on the road, she’d never felt safer.

The novelty of the thought brought her head up. Since Leighton came, her job was to make sure he was okay. To work hard to create a haven for them both. But it had been a long time since she’d felt like this. Safe. As though she could simply let go of all the responsibility, just for a moment, and someone else would take it on.

Her brows came together. Had she ever felt safe? Before giving birth, her childhood was one big shadow, with the dominant, angry figure of the Colonel front and centre. Colonel Martin Carvell specialised in order, discipline and results. Three things most young children instinctively repelled. He found it impossible to hide his dissatisfaction with every aspect of her performance as his only offspring, so he embraced it, taking her on as his personal project. Which, of course, she was. He fathered her. In the absence of her mother who died so young, who else’s responsibility would she be?

Unfortunately for her, the Colonel was as zealous with her improvement as he had been over a lifetime of whipping raw recruits into good military material. His favoured tools of the trade were a firm hand and harsh tongue. Romy still carried the emotional scars both had left her with. Above all was the lingering sense that she was insufficient . No matter what she did it would never be quite good enough.

And now it looked as if Clint McLeish was harbouring similar thoughts. That somehow—though he didn’t yet know how—she was going to stuff up. Like the failure her father always told her she was.

She let her gaze drift to the road in front of them. They narrowed.

What the…?

‘Stop!’ Romy flung out her hands to brace herself on the windscreen as the word exploded from her lips. In the same moment, Clint slid the ute sideways as his foot slammed the brake hard to the floor. The engine stalled. The only sound was the blood rushing furiously past her ears. Then breath returned and she burst into action.

Across the middle of the track, a large western grey kangaroo lay mortally wounded. Its head jerked uselessly in the gravel and Romy’s heart lurched painfully. She reached for the first-aid kit, unclipped her seatbelt and pushed the door open all in the same manoeuvre.

She was on her feet and rushing towards the injured animal before Clint had fully registered what was going on, but he still managed to be there ahead of her. The moment she got to its side, strong arms wrapped around her and dragged her back from the injured creature.

‘Romy, no. Just wait!’

‘For what? It needs help.’

‘She could kill you with those legs. Look at her feet.’

She’d never noticed how savage the claws on the end of a kangaroo’s huge feet were. But the rest of the animal…

‘I don’t think she can even move.’

He stared at the critical animal and released her. She found her feet and moved towards the kangaroo more cautiously. He was right beside her. Blood trickled from the poor creature’s nose and its eyes rolled at the approach of humans. But its injuries were extensive and the stillness of the rest of the lean, grey body was ominously telling.

Clint saw it, too. ‘Her spine’s broken.’

She kneeled at the roo’s side and gently stroked its furred shoulder, tears biting. The kangaroo’s wide-eyed stare wheeled around to what she was doing but there was no sign it could feel a thing. Her heart ached for its suffering.

‘Go back to the car.’ Clint’s voice was firm.

She looked up at the bleak shadows turning his green eyes stormy. ‘No. There must be something we can—’

‘Leave her with me. It’s kinder this way.’

He was nearly as grey as the roo, now. It dawned on her what he was going to do. Her heart clenched. ‘No, you can’t…’