‘It really isn’t what it looks like.’ Sam struggled to keep up with her all the way to his ute. Finally he stopped trying. ‘Sarah, if you’d stop for a moment and let me explain.’
Sweat trickled down Sarah’s back and prickled her scalp. Despite the fact it was spring, the temperature had begun to climb to summer highs. The uncomfortable, sticky sensation only added fuel to her fury.
She stopped and spun around on her heel. ‘I don’t want to hear it.’ Her voice rang out louder than she’d intended, and people turned to stare. Let them. She didn’t care. Balling her fists at her side, she glared at Sam, daring him to fight her right here, right now.
He took advantage of her standing still and hurried to her, clutching his akubra in his hands, his blue eyes dark with worry. What exactly he was worried about hadn’t been made clear. She figured getting caught two-timing in a small town rated highly.
‘I want you to hear it.’ He stood in front of her, so close she could smell the earthy scent of him. Despite her best intentions, his close proximity made her giddy with desire. She tamped down her lust. Her body had no sense when it came to Sam.
She crossed her arms and rocked her weight back on one hip. Fiona called it her defensive stance, and she’d be right.
‘What are you going to say? It’s all a misunderstanding and that woman got the wrong idea about your relationship? Because from what Maddie told me, and from where I stood, it looked like she had a very clear idea about your relationship.’
Sam sighed and ran his hand through his hair. ‘You turned up at the wrong time …’
‘Thank you, I got that.’
‘What I mean to say is you rocked up in the middle of a misunderstanding. Kylie just got back and was saying hello. We were never doing anything more than dating, the odd dinner or a drink at the pub, that’s all. Then she left to go back to the coast and I figured that was the end of things. No one thought she’d come back.’ He threw his arms wide. ‘Hell, not even she thought she’d come back.’
She considered his explanation for a nano-second. On the surface of things, it sounded plausible. Bored teacher and lonely farmer hook up for fun and dinner. Teacher hightails it back home and lonely farmer gets on with his life.
‘Doesn’t change a thing,’ she said as she turned and stomped her way to the ute. She’d come so close to giving all of her heart away to Sam without knowing anything about him. This woman turning up at the races only showed her what a dangerous game she’d been playing with her own emotions. She’d been so swept away by Sam that she hadn’t stopped to consider what kind of a man he might really be. History had shown Sarah that she couldn’t trust her own judgement.
‘What do you mean it doesn’t change a thing?’ He jogged to catch up. ‘Kylie is upset but she understands she made an assumption that we’d pick up where we’d left off. We haven’t been in touch once since she got on that plane.’
Sarah reached the car and tried to reef open the door, only to find it locked.
‘How long ago exactly did she leave?’ She narrowed her eyes at him, her mind ticking away at a thousand revs per second, her journalist’s instinct on high alert. There was more to the story here. She could smell it.
Sam paused. ‘The same day as you arrived.’ At least he had the good grace to blush.
‘Right.’ She held her hand out for the keys.
‘You are not driving angry. Besides, you have no idea where you’re going.’
‘It’s one road in and one road out. How hard can it be? Give me the keys. I want to sit in the air-conditioning out of this bloody heat.’ By herself. Even have a little pity cry if no one was looking.
‘I’ll drive you back to town.’
‘I’m fine, thank you. You stay with your friends. Levi can drive me back.’
‘Levi is barely fifteen years old. He doesn’t have a licence.’ Sam spoke patiently with the kind of tone a person used with overwrought toddlers.
‘I can drive myself and you can get a lift back with Kylie.’ She spoke between gritted teeth.
Sam threw his hands up in the air. ‘I honestly don’t see what the problem is here. I feel completely differently about you than I do about Kylie. The two cannot be compared.’
‘And you’ve had plenty of time to work this out, have you?’
‘I didn’t need time. I know.’ He sounded frustrated and fed up. She knew how he felt.
‘All that time you were chatting to me online, you were dating Kylie. I’d say that qualifies as cheating in anyone’s book.’ She watched the play of emotions across his face as he took in her words. ‘Especially when you specifically told me that you hadn’t dated anyone since your wife died. What does that make Kylie?’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ It was his turn to narrow his eyes at her, as if suspecting a trap.
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about, mister.’ To her shame, her index finger sprang to life, driving her words home. ‘You had plenty of opportunity to tell me about her. Especially after I told you about Greg! What does that make me? Another one of your short-term flings? What else have you lied about?’
‘Shit, Sarah, if I had a clue as to what’s going on in that head of yours we wouldn’t be having this conversation. And who the hell is Greg?’
‘Greg is my ex-boyfriend. And Lonely in Longreach doesn’t ring a bell?’
He shook his head, frowning. ‘Nope. The first time I laid eyes on you was at the pub the day you arrived. The rest is a mystery to me and I’d appreciate someone filling me in on what I’ve missed.’
‘What you’ve missed? You have got to be kidding me. I knew this … us … was too good to be true. You are such a liar.’ If she had anywhere to storm to, she would.
His face flushed with anger. ‘Never call me a liar again,’ he growled.
‘Then don’t tell lies,’ she snapped. ‘You had your profile up on Outback Singles fishing for new blood the whole time you were dating Kylie. I’m sure she’d like to hear about that. Are you still up on the site? Are you looking for fresh blood to replace me the minute I’ve gone back to Sydney?’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ Sam’s confusion and hurt gave way to palpable anger. ‘I don’t use the internet for anything other than email, let alone have an online dating profile.’
‘Right, and I’m expected to believe that.’ The gall of the man to stand right in front of her, look her in the eye and blatantly lie.
‘You can believe what you bloody well like, but that’s the truth.’ He looked angry, as if containing his fury cost him a lot.
‘I have the emails from you. I have the Outback Singles link to your profile. I know the truth.’ She held out her hand for the keys again. ‘You’ve used me and played me for a fool. I want to go home,’ she said, trembling. She had to get out of there fast before she started to cry.
He studied her, searching her eyes for something he didn’t find because he handed the keys over without further argument. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘You believe what you want. I never sent you an email and I never had a dating profile. Someone has been impersonating me and I intend to find out who it is.’ He took a deep breath. ‘What I can’t believe is that you won’t listen to me. When did I ever give you a reason to think I’m not genuine about us? You can walk away now but don’t think for a minute this is over.’
‘Whatever,’ she said as she unlocked the car. All she wanted was to get back to the motel, have a shower and a good cry then get on the first plane out of this godforsaken place. She could finish her interviews by phone. Home was where she needed to be, as far away from Sam Costello as she could get.
She got into the car and slammed the door shut. He knocked on the window. Reluctantly, she lowered it.
‘Aren’t you even the slightest bit curious to find out what’s really going on? How we ended up in this mess? Are you really willing to throw away what we’ve found without a fight?’
She stuck the keys in the ignition. ‘What difference does it make? Everything we shared was based on a lie. A whopping great cheesy lie.’ The car engine roared to life. ‘I can’t believe I fell for you. I can’t believe I was so stupid as to not see you for what you are.’
‘That is totally unfair,’ he burred up. ‘Everything I feel for you is one hundred percent genuine. I don’t know what’s gone on here but I am as much a victim of this as you are.’
‘Really? That’s what you’re going with? I’ve seen you kiss another woman with my own eyes. What other evidence do I need?’
‘I explained all that. What we have trumps any of this bullshit.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Sarah, please. I’m not sorry I met you or that you came out here.’
‘Yeah, well I am. I was really falling for you but you don’t even exist.’ She revved the engine, the sound matching the roaring pain in her heart.
She drove off so quickly he had to jump back out of the way.
The ute bounced out of the carpark, dust kicking up behind. When she reached the end of the main street, she let the tears come with great racking sobs that shook her body. She had to grip on to the steering wheel to keep from veering off the road.
She’d been so sure Sam had been the one. Her heart had answered to his in a way she’d never experienced with anyone else. Her body responded to his touch as though no one else existed. How could she have got it so wrong?
Pain thrummed in her chest along with humiliation, shame, remorse and a double serving of anger. Her emotions shifted gear so quickly she couldn’t keep up with them. Tears dripped from her chin and she didn’t have a tissue. She sniffed mightily and pulled over on the side of the road.
Searching the unfamiliar car, she popped the glove box to find nothing useful. Resigning herself to remaining a mess until she reached the motel, Sarah pulled back onto the highway and tried to ignore the fact she’d done a runner in Sam’s car which meant he’d come looking for it at some point. She’d not thought about that when she’d demanded the keys.
That was the least of her worries.
She pushed the power button for the radio. A country tune about love lost filled the car. Exactly what she needed. The words spoke of hearts betrayed and broken, like hers. She had an hour to drive so she cranked up the volume and let the tears fall freely as she drove down the highway.
She’d go back to Sydney, write the best article she’d ever written and swear off men forever. Maybe even look for a new job somewhere as a reporter on a news service. Or get a job at a TV station. Or give it all up and run away overseas to work in an orphanage for a few years.
Anything to be as far away as possible from here.
What the hell had just happened? One minute everything was fine, a little hiccup with Kylie, but fundamentally fine. Next minute Sarah was yelling at him about some internet profile and all the lies he’d supposedly told. It was like falling down the proverbial rabbit hole.
He watched Sarah drive off in his ute, at a loss as to what had happened and what he was going to do about it. The bottom had fallen out of his world in minutes for a crime he didn’t even know he’d committed. Anger, confusion, loss—hard to know which emotion to deal with first and none of them he wanted to feel in the public carpark of the Isisford Races.
Sam slapped his akubra against his thigh to dislodge the dust Sarah had kicked up when she’d spun the wheels, and pushed it down firmly on his head. He needed to find Levi and organise a lift home. Once there he might be able to piece together the disaster of the day and make some sense of what Sarah had said. Once he had the facts straight, he would talk with her. She’d have calmed down a bit by then and might be willing to listen.
He turned to go back to the festivities, aware of people politely turning away to gossip about him. Let them. Wouldn’t be the first time and probably not the last.
Levi appeared with Maddie in tow.
‘Are you okay, Dad?’ He put one hand on Sam’s shoulder and for a blinding second, Sam thought he might cry at the gesture.
‘I’m right, son,’ he said gruffly. ‘We need to find a lift home since …’
‘We saw,’ said Maddie in a small voice.
Sam nodded and bowed his head, keeping his eyes on the ground. Everyone saw. He took a deep, stabilising breath. Time to get out of here, which meant explaining why he needed a lift. Not looking forward to that and the inevitable told-you-sos to follow.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Maddie. ‘Wait here.’ She darted off through the crowd, giving Sam some much needed time to gather himself.
‘Can I get you anything?’ Levi asked, worry written all over his face.
‘I don’t think so.’ Sam shook his head, looking at the festivities around him and wanting to disappear. ‘I don’t know what happened. One minute we were fine, better than fine, and the next we’re breaking apart at the seams.’
Sam crouched down behind the other cars parked in untidy rows, seeking privacy while they waited for Maddie.
Levi ducked down next to him. ‘Was Miss Kempton the problem? She seemed mad to find out you’d moved on.’
‘How was I to know she intended on coming back and picking up where we left off?’ Sam held his hands out, palms up. ‘I get Sarah might be angry at the thought I could have a girlfriend, but I got the sense she had a whole lot more mad in her than I can reckon for.’
‘What was the, um … the problem then?’ Levi sounded nervous. He didn’t blame the poor kid. No boy should be comforting his father this way. Sam hadn’t meant to burden Levi with his raw emotions. It was sure to be overwhelming.
‘Sarah kept going on about a dating profile and emails. I had no idea what she was talking about.’ He ran their fight through his mind, looking for clues to explain her behaviour. She had been so hurt, angry and upset. But why?
He fished his phone out of his back pocket.
‘What are you doing, Dad?’ Levi asked.
‘Sarah said something about a dating site and I thought I’d look it up while we wait for Maddie.’ He tapped the name in. What was it? Outback romance or something. Google took a micro second to find the site. Outback Singles.
Now what? How did he find out if he was on here or not?
‘She mentioned a profile. If only I could remember the name.’ He tipped his head back and stared at the blue cloudless sky as if the answer might fall from there at any second.
‘Come on, Dad. What would you be doing on a dating site? Sarah’s spent too much time looking at that stuff for research. She’s confused.’
Sam looked at Levi. ‘Sarah is the least confused person I’ve ever met. Why would she say something that isn’t true? She must have had a reason to think I’d been emailing her. Like emails for example.’
Levi shrugged and stood up. ‘Where’s Maddie gone?’ He looked around then typed a quick text on his phone. ‘Hurry up, Maddie,’ he muttered.
‘What’s the rush?’ Sam stood up. Something was off. He could sense it. ‘What’s going on with you two? One minute you’re not talking to each other and you’re asking to go to boarding school. The next you’re thick as thieves.’
‘Oh, it’s nothing.’ Levi waved away Sam’s concerns. ‘A minor disagreement. All sorted.’
‘Mmm …’ Sam studied his son. The boy wouldn’t meet his eyes and he couldn’t stand still. Something was definitely up.
‘Hopefully Maddie can get us a lift back to Longreach. That’d be good, huh?’ Levi forced a smile.
‘Yeah, great.’ Sam’s mind ticked over at a thousand miles an hour. The memory of what Sarah said sat there, on the edge of his mind. He almost had it.
‘Here comes Maddie now.’ The relief in Levi’s voice was more than evident. ‘Over here!’
Maddie spotted them and navigated her way to where they stood.
‘I’ve sorted a lift for us. My dad says we can borrow his car. Mum and Dad will go home with some friends so we’re all good.’ She puffed a little as she caught her breath, a big smile of triumph on her face as she dangled the car keys from her fingers.
‘Thank you,’ said Sam, taking the keys from her outstretched hand. He’d thank her parents later when he got home and got a handle on his situation.
‘You coming with us?’ Levi’s question sounded more like a plea, his expression all puppy-dog.
‘Sure,’ said Maddie, looking from Levi to Sam, her previously cheerful demeanour dimming. ‘Everything okay?’
‘No,’ said Sam. ‘It’s not okay.’
‘Oh.’ She looked at her shoes as if they’d become the most interesting things on Earth.
Then it hit him. Lonely in Longreach. He punched the name into the website.
He stared at his profile in disbelief. The picture was him alright. It looked like the one the kids had taken weeks ago for some project they reckoned they were doing. Profiles on multigenerational farming families or something. He couldn’t remember and it hardly mattered now.
Oh, God. No.
The penny dropped. Surely they couldn’t have. Maddie maybe, not Levi. Sam scrolled through ‘his’ profile. No wonder Sarah seemed to know him so well.
He shook his head in an effort to make all the pieces fit together properly.
‘I thought you took that down,’ Levi hissed at Maddie.
‘I thought I did,’ she whispered back.
‘I’m right here,’ said Sam, a slow fury beginning to burn in his gut. ‘If either of you have something you need to tell me, now would be a really good time.’
‘Sorry, Dad.’ Levi looked as guilty as Maddie did.
‘What’s going on here? What have you two done?’
‘I … we …’ Maddie looked at Levi for help.
He looked scared, shrugged and shook his head. She’d get no help there.
‘We set up a dating profile for you to help you find a girlfriend so you wouldn’t be so lonely anymore.’
‘Lonely?’
‘We’ll be finished high school in a couple of years and then we’ll be gone. What are you going to do here all by yourself? You don’t even have a dog, Dad.’
‘Right, the two of you in the car, now. We’ll talk about this when we get home.’ His anger surged like a firestorm inside him. Anything he said now would be destructive.
‘We were only trying to help, Mr C,’ said Maddie timidly.
He could barely breathe.
The drive would give him some time to calm down enough to get to the bottom of this. Whatever the two of them had done—and they’d obviously been meddling in his life without his permission—would reverberate through their small community whether they liked it or not. Because if they’d done what he thought they had, then everyone would be gossiping about it for years. The story would be too good not to.
‘Where is the car?’
Maddie pointed to her father’s four-wheel drive.
‘You have exactly thirty seconds to get in and buckle up and then I don’t want a single word spoken on the way home. Got it?’
Levi and Maddie nodded in unison and bolted for the car. No need to ask them twice. He followed more sedately, self-control in every step. His mind tumbled around the facts, refusing to examine one for more than a moment before moving on to the next horrifying piece of the story. He figured it would take the better part of a bottle of whisky and several hours before he’d get to grips with the mess that his life had become.
Who knew what the state of affairs would be by this time tomorrow. First he had to understand the situation so he could explain it to Sarah. He had to sort it out before she had a chance to fly home. Once she left, she might never come back.
Notes for ‘Finding Love in the Outback’
Interview #8
Christina (44) single, from Gympie. Tried online dating without much success.
Christina: I’d moved to Gympie after my divorce. I thought a bigger town than the one I was from might yield more luck in love and life in general. I signed up to online dating because I was struggling to find blokes my age to date. I found a profile of what I thought was a great guy. He looked kind. We chatted for a bit, then we decided to meet.
He lived in a small community outside Gympie—I don’t want to say where in case he reads this—and we agreed we’d meet up in town for a coffee, you know … see what happens.
Anyway, he arrives, and he seems lovely. We have a nice time. We both agree we’re attracted to each other and I think, right I’m in. Then he says he needs to pop to the loo. Fair enough. Then he returns with a woman in tow. Turns out she’s his girlfriend. He asks me if I’d be up for a threesome. A threesome! Me! I didn’t know what to say, so I said goodbye and left. Let him pay the bill. Went home and deleted my dating profile. Never bothered again.