Annie West - Dreaming Of... Australia

‘So …’ The unease with which he paused made her wonder whether there was still more bad news to come. ‘Is there … anyone you’d like us to call for you? Your parents?’ He glanced down at the fingers he held within his own. ‘A partner?’

She frowned. Absolutely not Wayne. They were well and truly over. And she’d prefer to call her parents from the safety of terra-firma, when they wouldn’t have to see the immediate evidence of what heading off alone into the wilds had done to her and when they’d have less reason to tear each other to pieces. Work wouldn’t miss her for days yet—they knew how she got when she got to the transcribing stage of a project. ‘No. Not if you truly believe we’ll make it.’

‘We’ll make it.’ His certainty soaked through her just like his body heat. ‘But is there someone you’d call if you thought you weren’t going to make it?’

‘Hedging your bets, Sam?’ Maybe that was wise. She still had to get hauled out of here successfully.

His lips twisted. ‘It would be wrong of me not to ask.’

Danielle? That would get a tick in the friend box and the work box at the same time. She folded her brows and tried to make her foggy brain focus …

‘It’s not like prison, Aimee. You can have more than one phone call.’ Then he looked closer. ‘Or none at all. It’s not compulsory.’

How pathetic if she couldn’t even identify one ‘in case of emergency’ person. And how ridiculous. She sighed. ‘My parents, probably.’

He pulled a small notepad from his top pocket. ‘Want to give me a number?’

She stared at him, and then to the floor of the passenger seat. ‘Their numbers are in my phone.’

He blinked at that. ‘You don’t know your parents’ phone numbers?’

‘I have them on speed dial.’ There was no way that didn’t sound defensive. Not when she knew how little wear those two buttons actually got.

‘How about a name and address, then?’

There was no judgement there, yet his words somehow reeked of it. She glared and provided the information; he jotted it down, then called it up to all those people waiting up top. Waiting for sunrise. They confirmed, and promised to make contact with her parents. She wanted to shout out so they’d hear her: Wait until seven. Dad hates being woken . Sam held the earpiece out so she could hear their acknowledgement.

Then they both fell into uncomfortable silence. It stretched out endlessly and echoed with what he wasn’t saying.

She pressed back against her seat. ‘Go ahead, Sam. Just say it. We can’t sit here in silence.’

‘Say what?’

‘Whatever’s making you twitch.’

Even with full permission, and all the time in the world to tell her what he thought, Sam refrained. It was sad how surprised she was about that. Men in her life didn’t usually withhold their opinions. Or their judgement. Not even for a moment.

‘I watched my parents raise my brothers and sisters. Eighty percent of it was guesswork, I reckon. Parents don’t get a manual.’

She shook her head. ‘You’re from a big family?’

He nodded. ‘And my folks got a whole lot more right with my younger brothers than with me, so maybe practice makes perfect?’

‘What did they get wrong with you, Search-and-Rescue-Sam?’ He seemed pretty perfect to her. Heroic, a good listener, smart, gentle fingers, and live electricity zinging through his bloodstream …

‘Oh-ho … Plenty. I made their lives hell once I hit puberty.’

She studied him. ‘I can see you as a heart-breaker with the girls.’

He smiled. ‘No more than your average teen. But I was a handful, and I ran with some wild mates.’

‘Another thing I don’t have trouble seeing.’ Maybe it was the uniform. Maybe it was the torn-out-of-bed-at-midnight stubble. Maybe it was the glint in those blue eyes. He had the bad-boy gene for sure. Just a small one. Not big enough to be the slightest bit off-putting but just big enough to be appealing. Dangerously appealing.

‘Fortunately my older brother intervened, and turned me into the fine, upstanding citizen you see before you.’

She laughed, and her spirits lifted a hint more. Insane and impossible, but true enough. She shifted in her seat to remind herself of where they were and how much danger they were still in. ‘Tell me about him. I’m sick of talking about me.’

And of thinking about the wrong turns she’d made in her life.

‘Tony’s two years older than me. The first. The best.’

‘Is that your parents’ estimation or yours?’

He looked at her. ‘Definitely mine. He was everything I wanted to be growing up. The full hero-worship catastrophe.’

She smiled. ‘I can’t imagine having siblings.’

‘I can’t imagine not.’

‘You want kids? In the future?’ she added, in case her breathless question sounded too much like an offer.

He shrugged. ‘Isn’t that why we’re here? As a species, I mean? I like my genes, I’d like to see what else could be done with them.’

She was starting to like his genes, too. Very much. He had a whole swag of good-guy genes to go with the bad-boy one. And the dreamy eyes. Silence fell, and she realised into what personal territory they’d strayed. She was practically interviewing him for the job of future husband. ‘Sorry. Occupational hazard. I get way too interested in people’s lives.’

‘Why? What do you do?’

‘I’m a historian. Oral History. For the Department of Heritage.’

‘You talk to people for a living?’

‘I swing between talking endlessly to people and then spending weeks alone pulling their stories into shape.’

‘What for?’

‘So they’re not lost.’

‘I mean what happens with them?’

She shrugged. ‘They get archived. Locked away somewhere safe.’

‘No one ever hears them?’

‘Sure they do. Every story is catalogued by topic and theme and subject, so they can be accessed by researchers into just about anything anywhere in the world.’

‘Do you get to see the end results?’ he asked.

‘Not usually. Just my own research.’

‘So your work just goes on file somewhere? To gather dust, potentially, if no one ever looks for it?’ he mused.

‘Potentially.’ She shrugged. ‘You think something’s missing from that equation?’

‘Isn’t it a bit … thankless?’

She stared at him, wondering if he realised what he’d just revealed. Search-and-Rescue-Sam liked to be appreciated. This was exactly why she loved to do what she did. For the moments a person let a bit of his true self slip.

She smiled. ‘Not at all. Our jobs aren’t too dissimilar.’

He frowned at her.

‘We both save lives. You preserve their flesh for another few decades,’ she said. ‘I preserve their stories for ever. For their family. For perpetuity. There’s more to people’s time on earth than genetics.’

Which was why it was such a crime that her life was only just beginning at the ripe old age of twenty-five. She’d wasted so much time.

He considered her. ‘So what’s your story, Aimee Leigh? What are you doing up here in the highlands?’

‘Working. I’ve just finished a history, and the next few weeks I’ll be pulling it all together.’ She glanced around. ‘Or I would have been.’

‘You always do that in remote parts of the state?’

‘I wanted some time alone. I rented a house at Brady’s Lake.’

His eyebrows lifted. ‘How’s that time alone working out for you?’

Laughing felt too good. She went on longer than was probably necessary, and ended in a hacking cough. Sam reached out and slid his warm fingers to her pulse again, counting, then saying, ‘Nothing makes you reassess your life quite like nearly losing it.’