Grey colours seeped into the fog. Sunset was hours away though. Sarah took the workman’s toothbrush (the only one, red-handled, a generic brand) and immersed the bristles in hot water from the kettle. In her other hand she held a tube of toothpaste and her thermals. Heath was in the toilet block, washing and getting changed, doing without a toothbrush. He’d taken the bar of soap with him. The sound of the shower running drifted through the mist.

Sarah’s dilemma was that she wanted to shower, but not at the same time as him, and yet she was uncomfortable about leaving him alone with Tansy. If he was anything like Sarah he’d utilise his time alone and turn overtly stealthy – like she just had. Already Sarah had scrutinised her phone (she couldn’t see any sign that it had been tampered with, and couldn’t work out how to open it to check inside for its battery), she’d searched for his phone and his wallet (not found them), she’d stashed Tansy’s bridle in behind the container of drinking water, and, after unbuckling the girth strap from the saddle, folded the girth strap up and put it in her coat pocket. Try getting far on Tansy without a bit, reins, bridle or a saddle, mate. Sarah was about to leave the toothbrush soaking and go to check on her gun, when the sound of the shower stopped.

She walked briskly through the grass to the toilet block.

‘Coming in,’ she said and edged sideways through the gap in the door and into the gloom of the windowless timber building.

‘Whoa . . .’

‘Not looking, don’t worry.’ She turned her head away and held up her hand. Out of the corner of her eye she saw his naked form dart backwards into the shower cubical, glimpsed his tattoo again and caught sight of more ink work on the top of his thigh, same side of his body.

‘Um . . . I won’t be long, if you wanna wait?’

‘I’m good.’

There were two showers, side by side. Sarah figured if she was quick, she could finish showering in the time it took him to dress, and then dry herself as he left, that way he’d feel under pressure, no time to snoop or steal her horse or do whatever sneaky thing it seemed he was destined to do.

A thin sheet of corrugated iron between them, Sarah was pleased the light in the block was poor. She felt more exposed now than she had when half-naked in bed beside him. She undressed, put her clothes on the basin taps so that they wouldn’t get wet; it meant she had to step a little way out of the cubicle. He was breathing loudly, puffing, recovering from his cold shower. She could hear him briskly rubbing his body dry.

‘Are you ready for me to pass the soap?’

Naked, Sarah suddenly questioned her sanity. Was she truly nude in a dingy shower block while isolated on a mountain with a total stranger? And a young male at that. Why, again, had she thought it wise to shower with him, undress beside him, curl up in a bed with him last night? Time was bunny hopping, like it had on the bridge. Her head was spinning because it felt like only a second ago that she’d been having a warm shower in her own bathroom, alone.

His hand appeared from around the tin wall with the soap resting in his open palm. ‘I’d slide it under, but figured I shouldn’t make you bend over.’

She’d seen his bare wrist before now, but it looked very bare when emerging from behind a shower stall. Sarah was acutely aware that his hand and lower arm were attached to his unclothed body. His nakedness might have been the reason she’d thought this was a good idea – wet, cold and shivering, difficult conditions in which to get aggressive. It wasn’t enough to quell her fear now though. Sarah’s mind and body joined forces in agreement with each other – this was a bad situation. All she could think, all that her body knew, was that this man was unknown to her, stronger than her, even with his injured leg, and she didn’t have a stitch of clothing covering her. That, and the age-old adage – there was no one to hear her scream.

‘Sarah?’

She looked over at her clothes and hugged her arms tightly to her breasts. She squeezed her legs together. Her body didn’t feel womanly or sexy, not in the least. She felt small, useless, her body a detriment to her. She willed him to leave, leave her alone, leave her horse alone, disappear into the fog.

He guessed the problem.

‘Hey,’ he said softly. His hand retreated behind the dividing wall. A short silence followed, as he gathered his thoughts and pieced together what he’d say. ‘Sarah, I swear you don’t have to be worried. You came in here because you sensed it was okay, and you were right.’ He tried to joke, ‘If I could come around there and show you it’s all good, I would. And by all good I do mean – bloody impressive. Kidding. Don’t worry; I’m not going to come around there. Sarah? I’m not going to.’

A wave of exhaustion swept over Sarah. She clamped her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She forced her palm into her lips and dug her fingers into her face, pushing the emotion back inside her, setting her teeth. If she had to be trapped, if her bad luck had not yet run its course, and God, or whoever, had decided that she needed a few more hard lessons yet, why couldn’t she be alone for it? Or with a woman? That would have been pleasant, female company.

Heath could tell that she was crying. He inhaled. ‘It’s my fault. You didn’t trust me to be alone with Tansy. But you don’t have to worry. I’m not going to take your horse. I can tell you with one hundred per cent honesty that I don’t want to hurt you in any way, not at all. Actually, after getting to know you, I want the opposite of that. You seem like a really top bird, Sarah. You really do. If I say to you . . . if I say I know I haven’t made things totally clear, but that I’m trying to be as honest as I can. If I say that, does it help?’

Sarah didn’t respond.

‘I don’t suppose it does. You don’t have to say anything,’ he said when she didn’t. ‘I’m going to leave you to wash. The soap is here on this side. Take as long as you like. Although, the water is absolutely bloody frigging freezing; don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

A couple of times Sarah looked up from the meal to catch Heath staring out into the mist with his head tilted, listening. She was clean, warm and dry, with her thermals beneath her jeans and shirt. Tansy was grazing in her yard. Already Heath had his favourite chair and Sarah had hers; they had their preferred sides of the table, Sarah with her view of Tansy, Heath with his view of the van beside them and down to the hut. To eat their meal, they pulled the table close to the fire. Sarah’s face was flushed from the heat. Her eyes and cheeks in particular were warm, the skin puffy and tearstained from her breakdown in the shower: her female moment. She could kick herself for being so weak.

It was four p.m. On their plates the slices of ham were fatty, the divvied up cheeses were calorie rich and decadent in such large quantities, half a wheel of brie each, pie-sized wedges of smoked Gouda. Dessert was in a small pile between them. They were eating their way across their plates, edging towards the plum pudding, custard and mince pies in the middle of the table.

‘Can I ask what sort of work you do?’ she said.

‘In between jobs at the moment. I do a bit of farm work.’

‘Is your parents’ property a farm? Do you come from a farming background?’

‘Yeah, I do.’

For a moment it seemed he was going to elaborate. He didn’t.

‘We’re going to need conversation cards. I could write them out and you could go through and veto the topics.’

‘You’re very patient, Sarah.’

‘I’m not usually.’

She put aside her empty plate. Sarah brought out the whiskey. She needed a drink. She poured a generous amount into each mug.

‘Cattle farm,’ he divulged suddenly. ‘Beef cattle. The farm will come to me. Until it does I try and do a bit away from the place, get some experience outside of the property. In the nicest possible way, Mum and Dad kicked me out. So I won’t burn out later on the place. So I can appreciate it when I do go back.’ This freeing up of Heath’s tongue was spontaneous. He hadn’t had any alcohol yet. Now he took a sip.

‘No brothers and sisters?’

‘I have a brother. He doesn’t want the farm though.’

‘Not the farming type?’

‘He’s got some problems.’ One side of Heath’s mouth was greasy from the ham. He wiped at it with his knuckles. He glanced at Sarah through his lashes. ‘He suffers from depression.’

‘Oh.’

‘He’s married,’ Heath said unprompted. ‘He’s got a daughter. You wouldn’t guess he’s not well, looking at him. He runs a gym with his wife, they have this sixty-square, awesome house.’ Heath reached out to rest his hand beside his plate. He rubbed his thumb back and forth on the enamel edge. ‘When he’s in an off period he ends up out at the farm. Everything gets on top of him. He just struggles to keep it all together.’

‘Are you close to him?’

‘It’s hard to get close to him. It’s funny because he loves me, he really does, but I . . .’ Heath stopped and a shamed look entered his eyes. Sarah realised he’d been about to say that he doesn’t love his brother the same way in return. ‘I don’t know why he loves me so much. I could count on one hand the times me and him have done something together.’

‘He’s older than you?’

‘Four years.’

‘He might feel guilty for not being the big brother he wanted to be.’

‘In his good periods, he tries his hardest to be a son and a husband and a dad, but he never, he never is a brother. He . . .’ Heath held up his hands and pushed an invisible wall, ‘. . . keeps his distance.’

‘He might not want to burden you with how sad he feels?’

‘Maybe.’ Heath sipped his whiskey. She could see he was thinking back over what he’d said, regretting his candour maybe.

Sarah dished up dessert. There was even more on their plates now than there had been for mains. She poured a dash of cold water in with her whiskey, to stretch it out, sipped it to taste. ‘When there’s someone sick like that in a family, it must be hard to be the healthy one.’

‘Harder to be the sick one, I reckon.’

‘Does he look like you?’

‘You can tell we’re related. People say we sound exactly the same. He’s really good-looking though.’

Sarah scoffed. ‘And you’re not? Shit, he must be bloody gorgeous.’ The words were out before she could stop them. She pursed her lips – too late. How could she say that, think that, having only a short while ago frozen with fear beside him in the shower? What was wrong with her? Here was the opportunity to outline the platonic nature of things, and Sarah had to go and muddy it with comments like that. It was as though she wanted an element of maybe, maybe not between them. If he’d levelled one of his glinting green gazes at her then God knows the shade of deep red she would have gone.

He picked up his bowl and surveyed the contents. He seemed to be letting her off the hook by ignoring the compliment. ‘I’ve got butterflies in my stomach. This looks amazing. And I don’t even like plum pudding.’

Now her pulse was racing – it was ridiculous. Heat prickled beneath the merino wool of her thermals. Her palms were sweaty. For the first time in many years Sarah felt single. Not married, not partnered, not chewed-up, spat out, deceived, used and hurt. Just single. And what a time to feel it. This was the problem with noticeably attractive people: you noticed them. Until you got to know them, their external beauty was all you saw. Familiarity would moderate Heath’s looks, but the type of information he was drip-feeding her wasn’t doing it, if anything it was enhancing his appeal. Sarah pulled herself together. She told herself it wasn’t that she found Heath attractive; it was that he was attractive, two very different things.

He eased his chair around and propped his feet on a block of wood, rested his bowl high on his chest. ‘Wonder how the Boxing Day Test is going? Kill for a score.’

His five o’clock shadow had filled in. His cheeks were ruddy from the heat. She watched him repositioning himself. If not for his limp she would have noticed much earlier that Heath moved his body like a cat. He stretched single muscle groups with a slow roll of his shoulder, a gentle twist of his head. He was unabashed about his shape and length and often lifted his arms and arched his body to extend it. Over in the stable was the sound of Tansy shaking her body. She was settling further in to her home too, easing off high alert and getting comfortable.

‘Mmm,’ Heath sunk low in his seat and took a mouthful of dessert, ‘. . . my tastes are changing as I chew.’

Sarah put aside her dessert. She drank her whiskey. ‘Plum pudding is one of my favourite things. I’m saving mine for later.’

‘You must be a grownup. Mum tells me only grownups like plum pudding. At Christmas lunch she makes me sit at the kids’ table to eat my chocolate ice cream. Looks like after this I’ll have a seat at the adult table.’

‘It’ll be funny if I do know your parents. Is the farm a fair way out? Did you go to a small rural school?’

‘I boarded.’

‘Ah, a city-educated snob. Lucky we didn’t know one another, you would have looked down your nose at me.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘My place in Lauriston has been on the market,’ she told him. ‘It sold a week ago. Not really sure where I’ll be after this.’

‘I like the mountains.’

‘You say that now, you might feel differently if we’re still here in a couple of days.’

‘Nah. Touching wood and all that . . .’ He tapped the toe of his boot against the block of timber. ‘But this isn’t bad. Got my whole life to be lying on the couch watching cricket. These are the moments that stay with you forever.’

‘That’s one way to look at it.’

‘I know it’s different for you. Being a woman and all, and vulnerable.’

‘That’s sexist.’

‘It didn’t come out like I meant.’

‘Before you started whistling Dixie from your log, I wasn’t too far away from thinking it was kind of an all right moment for me too.’

‘Then I came along and blew your Zen.’ He grinned with the spoon turned upside down in his mouth.

Sarah’s moment of muddled attraction toward him had passed. But he brought it all back with his teasing smile. ‘I wouldn’t say I was in a state of Zen.’ She reached for the bottle. She splashed another glug of the whiskey into her cup. ‘I’m just saying I’m not sure I’m going to be overjoyed to see the rescuers either.’

‘We’ll pitch in and protest our right to never leave.’

‘Not until our demands are met. I want my farm back. And my business. My horses, too. I’ve got quite a list.’

‘Sounds like it.’

‘What would you ask for?’

He had to think. ‘Aside from five mill in unmarked bills?’

‘Goes without saying. We did agree on a fifty-fifty split, didn’t we?’

‘My dog then,’ he said. ‘I want my dog back. That might sound a bit lame against all your demands.’

‘Not at all.’

Heath was thinking of other things to add. ‘That’s it, just my dog.’

‘You lost him?’

‘He died recently. Old age.’ Heath slowed his eating. ‘It’s like I can’t bear to have a dog now, ’cause I know it hurts too much when they go. It’s kinda like I want one but I don’t want to love it too much.’ He smiled gently. ‘Don’t know how people handle having kids if it frightens me to love a dog.’

‘I love Tansy like she’s my daughter. I’m the same, just the idea of something happening to her . . .’ Sarah shook her head.

‘They get to you all right.’

‘What was your dog’s name?’

‘Jasper.’

‘What breed was he?’

‘Bit of everything. Mostly bloodhound.’

A gust of wind passed through. It was sudden enough to spook Tansy and strong enough to pick up a piece of cord tied to the roof rack on the caravan. The cord end snaked down and whipped against the van. Tansy bolted into her outside yard, seeking safety in open spaces.

Heath looked at the loose cord. With that gust the mist was thinning, or it had been slowly dissipating as they spoke, but Sarah only noticed now.

‘Fog is gonna shift.’ She checked her watch.

‘What time is it?’

‘A bit past four-thirty.’

Heath peered out at the retreating fog. The outlines of the hut and the toilet block were now visible.

‘We’ll hear a helicopter,’ Sarah said.

Another gust swept through the camping ground. Tin on the hut roof rattled, and the loose cord whipped against the van.

‘Or it’s going to get too windy for a helicopter,’ she said. ‘I’ve known of a couple of rescues off the mountain. It’s either wind or fog that holds them up. Always one or the other.’

‘It’s not so much the wind,’ Heath countered, with the confidence of someone who had firsthand knowledge, ‘it’s the fog. Visibility. They can’t fly in poor visibility. The pad,’ he pointed over his shoulder at the shed back wall, indicating the cleared area beyond the wall of the shed, ‘is one of the most dangerous bush helipads around for that reason – because the fog closes in quick up here.’

Sarah watched him steadily for a moment. In a way she wished he’d get his story straight – did he know the mountain, or didn’t he? – because each time he wandered away from his account of things, her unease returned.

‘Maybe we should try drying out the inside of my phone?’ she said. ‘We might as well – it’s not working as it is. If we could get it working we’d at least know what’s happening with the weather and down in the towns, when they might be coming.’

The cord lashing about was becoming impossible to ignore. Heath got to his feet and climbed up onto the van tow bar to reach the end of the rope tied to the roof rack. The van suspension creaked with his weight. His knee was without its clear film bandage. He stuck the leg out on an awkward angle, and tried to untie the cord with one hand while holding on with the other for balance.

‘I can do that,’ Sarah said getting up.

‘I got it.’

Pain paled and tightened his features as he used both legs to stand on the tow bar. She could see his jaw grinding back and forth with discomfort as he finished untying the cord. No doubting his injury then, he was just stubborn about it like she would be.

‘It’s the workmen’s clothesline.’ Sarah tipped her face to the roof beams above her. ‘They would have tied off the other end up there.’

Heath looped the freed cord in his hands. He looked unsure as to how to get down from his elevated spot. As she had done beside the bog, Sarah went to him and offered her shoulder as support. He remained flummoxed about how to make the small drop. She turned and presented him her back.

‘Climb on.’

‘I’ve got to strap it again,’ he said, a half-embarrassed justification for his predicament.

The manoeuvre was less a piggyback and more a slippery slide. She hunched and he leaned his body onto her. She was becoming accustomed to his weight – pulling him through the bog, helping him into the shed, sitting him in the chair. As she straightened he was deposited gently on the floor. He stood on one foot at first, and then tentatively put down his other foot.

‘It’s getting worse.’ His face had turned grey, with worry or pain, or both.

‘I’ll help you strap it.’

He put the cord in his pocket. Both his hands went around his knee. For the first time Sarah saw a look of unguarded fear in his eyes.

‘Hop to the chair.’

He did.

‘Where did you put the cling film?’

‘In the drawer under the bed.’

‘Do you need painkillers?’

‘No, no,’ he said.

The drawer beneath the van bed was hard to find. It was a concealed one that Sarah hadn’t discovered in her initial investigations. She pushed a panel at the foot of the bed and the long drawer popped out. Inside it were the clothes Heath had arrived in – cleaned, dried and neatly folded. Sarah pressed the items, to feel if anything was in the pockets. Without shaking out the pants, though, it was hard to tell if the pockets were full. And something about the precise way the items were folded told Sarah that Heath would know if she’d been fossicking through his gear. The roll of cling film was in the drawer too, as was a drink bottle Sarah had seen up the top of the kitchen cupboard, and a tightly bundled ball of garbage bags that he must have taken from the kitchen cupboards as well.

When Sarah went back out to him, she carried her phone as well as the cling film.

‘You might be better than me at opening this.’

Sarah passed him the phone. She crouched by his leg and began peeling a length of plastic from the roll. He seemed dubious about taking or touching her phone. He placed it beside him on the table. ‘I’d be too worried I’d damage it by opening it.’

‘It’s already damaged. I’m going to open it anyway.’ Sarah peeled a length of plastic from the roll. ‘If I get it working I could explain to the rescuers that I’m not going to leave my horse, all I need is a drop of food and supplies.’ Sarah looked pointedly across at Tansy. ‘I’m not talking out of the top of my head – I won’t leave my horse.’ Maybe it was the whiskey but Sarah suddenly felt confident enough to say, ‘If I have to be shacked up with someone, I’m glad it’s you, Heath. If you don’t want me to say anything about you, I won’t.’

‘I just don’t think opening your phone is going to make it work.’

‘It needs to dry out that’s all.’

Sarah was expecting to see swelling in Heath’s knee, but there was only a slight lump above his kneecap, possibly a normal fleshy bit. She’d need the other knee in the same stretched-out position for comparison. He had his other knee bent up with his hand resting on it. She couldn’t very well say in one breath that he should trust her and then in the next make him show her both legs so she could judge for herself how badly he was injured.

‘Is there some special way I should be bandaging this?’

‘Here,’ he leaned down and took the roll. ‘Above and around it.’

Sarah stayed crouched and watched what he did.

He avoided the kneecap itself, a diamond-shaped strapping. Bending forward his head came level with hers.

Even when married, some women don’t shelve that ability to look at a man, hold eye contact and convey the unmistakable directness, eye contact that slices through congeniality, convention, politeness, everything falls away for a moment. You’ve got a certain something that I like. Sarah had binned the look long ago. It hadn’t been a conscious act, naturally loyal, she’d lost her pick-up skills well before the altar, before the engagement ring, felt she’d never need to pick up again the moment her husband had said I love you and she’d said it in return, dumbly believing in One Love. Ten years plus of dust had settled on Sarah’s look, on her pick-up skills. They must have grown dull. Heath barely glanced back at her. He fiddled around tearing off the cling film and tucking under the end piece.

‘I might actually have one of those painkillers. If you don’t mind?’

It was probably just as well he took no notice of her. Sarah was lurching from one feeling to the next, switching tack midway, grabbing onto whatever looked feasible as a raft. Being constantly in two minds was making her dizzy.

The tablets were in her saddlebag. Wind was gusting every few minutes. A grey, late-afternoon sky could be glimpsed through the thin patches of mist. Sarah walked across to her saddle. She swayed. The food she’d eaten hadn’t been enough to stop the alcohol going straight to her head.

Her painkillers weren’t the over-the-counter type. Sarah had suffered her first ever migraine in the weeks after the collapse of her marriage. Three days laid up in bed, vomiting as well as crippled by head pain. She feared the onset of that ocean liner of hurt; the bow of a P&O ship ploughing into her cranium. Paracetamol couldn’t be trusted after a migraine. These days, at the first twinge of a headache she reached for the big guns. Nip it in the bud.

‘You might only need half a tablet,’ Sarah said as she returned to the table. ‘They’re strong. You’re not allergic to morphine are you?’

‘Hey?’

‘They’re really strong.’

She showed him the box. He recoiled from it. ‘What are they?’

‘Nordoxin.’

‘I was thinking a couple of Panadol . . .’

‘This is all I’ve got.’

‘I’ll give it a miss.’ He glanced up at her face. ‘Thanks anyway.’

Sarah took the tablets back to her saddlebag and put them away. His reaction put a line through one thing – he was no drug dealer. It looked as though he’d never come within cooee of anything more potent than Berocca.

‘I might lie down,’ he called across to her.

Heath was up and in the van before Sarah drew breath to reply. She slumped and parked herself sideways on her saddle, staring at the vacated table. It was one aspect of being single that she’d forgotten about – the utter confusion and the erratic nature of it all, the sting of rejection, even in this situation when it was best to be rejected.

Back at the table, she capped the whiskey bottle and put it away, out of sight. She ate her dessert. Her phone was sitting on his side of the table, forlornly, rejected, a bit like she was. The buzz of alcohol was white noise in Sarah’s ears. She tried to think clearly. Couldn’t. What she did notice was that he’d taken the roll of plastic wrap with him, and that the length of cable was nowhere to be seen.