Chapter 9

Dawn was dusky pink and silent.

Evie lay on the mattress Adam had given her last night as hazy clouds moved slowly across the sky. She turned her head to look under the truck to the other side where Adam lay sleeping, spread out like a starfish on his new double mattress.

Last night, they’d moved the truck into a clearing, and now that it was light enough, she saw their makeshift camp for the first time. They were screened from the road by a line of trees and spikey spinifex grass and the fine, sand-like earth was a rich red brown. She was covered in it and so was Adam.

Like her, he’d slept in his clothes, and his T-shirt had now twisted up past his ribs to reveal those ridiculously molded abs. They were coated in fine dark hair that grew thicker and darker around the dip of his navel, tapering to a narrow trail toward the fastening of his shorts. His torso was too sculpted. Too in-your-face perfect to be real but she’d not only seen all of Adam, she’d also felt him against her when he’d held her down to the ground last night, and yep—that body was real. It was hard and hot and solid, and made her think of tangled white sheets, noisy sex, and all the women he’d been with in the past.

No doubt there’d been plenty and she’d bet her life—absolutely certain, without a shadow of a doubt—that none of them had ever, ever blown their nose on their vest . . . and in front of him, too.

Evie groaned. She was only one spit, burp and fart away from turning into a complete Neanderthal. Could she be any more embarrassing?

Afraid that the answer was, yes, she looked miserably over at Adam again. Her imagination had gone nuts last night, but it was hard to imagine now why she’d been so scared of him. Her pressure-cooked emotions had reached a high-whistling pitch and in the confusion, she’d even thought he’d been about to kiss her. Which of course he hadn’t. Men didn’t do things like that, not in the real world. And certainly not with crazy women who accused them of being drug-dealing thieves.

Evie sat up and hugged her knees. It was so quiet here, so peaceful. The image of Zac’s baby boy suddenly popped into her head again. Velvet-soft cheeks and tiny, tiny fingers.

So I was the problem.

They hadn’t been able to make a baby together because of her. Was that why Zac had kept the truth from her? Because he hadn’t wanted Evie to worry about her fertility? Because he hadn’t wanted her to think he was gloating in some way?

“You should forget all about that dickhead,” Adam had said to her last night as they’d shared a tin of cold beans for dinner.

“He’s not a dickhead.” Evie Blake didn’t fall in love with dickheads.

“Whatever,” Adam had said. “You need to get over him. He’s moved on and so should you.”

She'd tried to swallow the beans but any appetite was suppressed by her misery. “I have moved on,” she’d told him. “I’m here—traveling alone—getting on with my life, aren’t I?”

“So you’re just bitching now that another woman’s got what you once had?”

“No.” She’d been defensive then. She wasn’t bitching. “And before you say it, I’m not jealous either.”

She wasn’t, was she? Evie didn’t think so, though it was hard seeing past her disappointment that Zac had let her go to Australia so easily—and that he’d lied to her. That was the real stinger, especially as he’d been witness to the years she’d spent coming to terms with her father’s deceit. Zac knew honesty in a person was one of the virtues Evie valued the most but he’d overlooked this. Had he forgotten absolutely everything about her? Fifteen years. Was she really that… unremarkable?

As she’d talked to Adam last night, Evie’s old insecurities had stirred but rather than dwell on them, she’d changed the subject to their travels and what they should do next.

Which wasn’t a great deal.

Adam had decided last night not to attempt the entire Gibb River Road, or the numerous tracks that ran off it. He’d tried to persuade her that off-roading through the Kimberleys was totally unachievable for them. It was too remote, too hot, and they were two unprepared amateurs.

Maybe. But what had made sense in the darkness felt a lot like failure in the morning light. Evie was so close to exploring the Kimberleys and although Adam might feel like a travel amateur, she didn’t. It would be a shame to have come this far and not see the region in greater depth like she’d always dreamed.

But part of her knew Adam was right—and his cash wouldn’t get him very far, anyway. Not even if she paid half the expenses to Darwin. He’d told her his replacement cards were being posted to his friends’ address, so until his friends returned from Sydney, Adam was a man of little means.

No wonder he’d just driven up.

Evie grabbed a packet of tissues out of her bag and walked away from the truck to squat behind a bush. When she returned, Adam was still sleeping. She made some noise dressing, cleaning her teeth, rummaging in her bag, but he still didn’t wake. Her stomach rumbled. She didn’t feel right helping herself to his limited supplies, so she glugged back water for breakfast and decided to go for a walk to the rocky outcrop that peeked above the tree line ahead. She’d seen it glinting last night in the moonlight and had been considering the dark craggy rocks since daybreak.

The short walk would clear her head, so she stuffed her water bottle into her day bag and left Adam a note under a windscreen wiper. Then she picked her way through the clusters of bushes, ensuring she left tracks so she could find the way back. The outcrop was closer than it looked, just a couple of minutes’ amble, zig-zagging through the scrubland.

The base of the outcrop emerged from behind the trees. Evie gazed up over the spindly branches and willowy grasses that grew among the cracks and ledges, and quickly spotted the natural pathway of time-flattened stone leading upwards. She hadn’t intended to climb, but the first ledge beckoned and she began walking along the wide balcony-like ledges, inclining as they curved to the other side like a prehistoric helter-skelter.

Soon, Evie was above the tree line. She turned toward the direction in which she’d come. In the distance, the highway—hidden in places by trees—scored a long, straight line through the rugged earth. Below her, and much closer, was the top of the truck and the mattress on which she’d slept. She angled her neck but couldn’t see Adam. He was probably still sleeping.

Nearing the top, she clambered and scaled over rocks cracked by the heat and rain of millennia. Some were taller than her and when she got as high as she could without risking injury, breathless with exertion, Evie was surprised to realize she was still no higher up than the average house. Sweat beaded on the side of her face and her vest stuck to her back where her rucksack pressed against it. She took her bag off her shoulders and drank some water, staring at the rugged vastness below.

As far as the eye could see, not one building, pylon, or lamp post—only land, baked hard and red, patched in green and brown. Evie took a deep breath and then another, tasting the adventure and discovery coursing through her. A bolt of excitement, just like that night nearly a year ago when she’d first told Zac about her idea to travel. Except this view in front of her now was nothing like the images she’d seen on her laptop. This was real and tangible, beautifully raw and magnificent.

And there was no way Evie would miss seeing it all.

Adam stirred in his sleep. He was dreaming but couldn’t wake up. The flash photography was too blinding, the voices shouting his name too loud, and the exit too crowded and blocked. There was nowhere to go, no air to breathe, and nothing to do but shield his eyes from the brightness, painfully conscious that he was butt naked and dripping wet. Then the crowds disappeared and only Evie remained, standing before him like she’d done that first morning staring open-mouthed at his groin.

Only this time, she was naked too.

Adam’s eyes flew open. The flash photography turned into bright morning sun, the voices into tall grasses rustling in the breeze and a squawking bird. He shook his head clear and rubbed his eyes, but was unable to shed the naked image of Evie.

What a stupid dream. And was it any surprise that Evie had been in it? She was the only person he knew within a five-thousand-kilometer radius. Dreaming of her naked didn’t mean anything, and neither had that random urge to kiss her yesterday. That had just been circumstantial. A man who hadn’t had sex in a while lying on top of a woman. What did he expect?

Adam rubbed his eyes again and turned over, not quite ready to face the day. But then he looked under the truck at Evie’s empty mattress. Her clothes spilled out of her backpack next to her mattress and her sandals were gone. He propped himself up onto his elbow.

“Hey, Evie?”

Judging by the sun’s position, it wasn’t long past dawn. Adam stood and called out to her again. When she didn’t reply, he assumed she was behind a bush somewhere so went to find one of his own, keeping to his side of the truck just like they’d agreed last night to avoid any more awkward incidents.

Adam emptied his bladder. Yeah, last night. He’d apologized for his incompetence, explaining he’d been so focused on getting to Darwin after his wallet had been stolen that he’d neglected checking the truck over, having put his trust in Nutjob Ted. Luckily, she’d bought it all with no further questions asked.

When Adam returned from the bushes, he called out to Evie again but there was still no reply. He pulled his TAG Heuer out of the glove box and checked the time. Seven forty. He’d slept for nine hours, but alone in the stillness and quiet, it had felt like days. He replaced the watch, then noticed a trail of footprints in the dry earth.

“Evie?” Quickening his pace, Adam followed the tracks through the gap in the trees toward the outcrop. “Where are you?”

Prickles of anxiety stirred within him and he wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t trapped by fans in a shop now and Evie was a grown woman, responsible for herself. But still—

“Evie!”

“Up here.”

Relief hitched his breath when she appeared on a ledge against the sky, waving both arms above her head.

“What the hell, Evie!” he shouted up to her. “You can’t just go wandering off by yourself here.”

Her arms dropped to her sides, then firmly back to her hips just like in his dream, except she was wearing clothes. “Do I look five years old to you?”

Adam opened his mouth to speak, but that clipped accent of hers seem to cut the air to his brain.

“Just come up and look at this view. It’s amazing.”

Huh. So, while he’d been imagining her snake-bitten body, lost in the outback, she’d been admiring the view? Adam shook his head. Out here there was no one else, and they owed it to each other to keep safe, especially if something did happen to her and he was involved. Another international incident—and after Port Douglas, Adam had had enough of those.

Reaching the first ledge, Adam located the path up to Evie and found her sitting on a rock with her back to him.

“Next time you wanna go for a walk,” he said, “wake me up.”

“A thunderstorm couldn’t wake you, and anyway, didn’t you see my note?”

“What note?”

“That’ll be a no, then.” Evie turned back to the view and opened her arms to indicate the span of the landscape. “But just take a look at this!”

Adam stepped to her side, his gaze drawn too a sea of treetops under, the horizon curving with the shape of the Earth. In the distance to his far right, several rocky outcrops similar to the one they stood on stuck out of the parched, pristine land. Some, like theirs, dripped with vegetation, others were black and scorched from the sun.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Evie said.

The wind picked up, warm and sticky from the heated earth below. Adam regarded her with interest. “What makes you so disgustingly cheerful this morning?”

She laughed, so different now to the crumpled woman of last night. “Oh, I had a good cry in front of a stranger I thought was out to kill me.” She waved off the incident with a sheepish sigh. “I’m sorry about yesterday.”

Evie had already apologized—several times—last night and each time Adam had told her there was no need. He was about to tell her again when she turned to him and said, "Have you ever done anything so completely insane and out of character that after you’ve done it, instead of feeling crazy, you feel, I don’t know… normal? Like for the first time in ages you’re seeing things clearly, just as they should be?”

Like jumping on a plane with just the clothes on his back?

Adam stared at her, speechless that she’d put into words how he’d felt that morning soaring over the Pacific at thirty thousand feet.

“No, of course, not.” She shook her head, mis-reading his silence. “Never mind, I’m not explaining it very well.”

Oh, but she was. She’d hit the nail on the head, rammed it through the wood and out the other side. Adam continued to stare, and when he finally realized she was staring right back—a line of confusion marking her brow—he cleared his throat. “So, uh…how long have you been up here?”

She checked her wristwatch. “About an hour.”

“That’s a lot of thinking time.”

“Yeah. I feel much better now.” Evie smiled and hugged her knees as she gazed at the view. “You were right about Zac.”

“Zac?” Adam sat down beside her. “Is that the dickhead you were crying over last night?”

“He’s not a dickhead, but yes. Zac is his name.” She picked up a stone and lobbed it over the trees. “Maybe I am hurt that another woman’s got what I once had, but we tried for a baby for over a year, so it’s weird for me knowing he’s got one with someone else.”

It was on the tip of Adam’s tongue to mention that he could have been trying for over a year with this other woman too, but somehow Evie still believed the dickhead wouldn’t have had an affair. Whatever. She was clearly still in love with him and had turned blind to his faults. Adam had seen it countless times before with his father’s women.

“I was so disappointed that Zac didn’t want to come to Australia with me. I thought we could rediscover ourselves out here. I was prepared to put the effort in to rekindle our relationship, but he wasn’t.” She sighed. “So, he’s moved on. I’ve accepted it, but . . . well. It’s hard being so far from home, and he should have told me he and Teagan were expecting a baby. I thought we were still good friends.”

“Well, there you go. Men and women can’t be friends after a relationship, no matter how nicely they break up.”

Evie turned to face him. “Spoken like a man who’s never been friends with an ex-girlfriend.”

Adam shrugged and tossed his own stone over the edge. “What’s the point?”

“Shared interests? Companionship? The fact that at one point you liked one another enough to be together.”

Seriously? “The only reason women want to be friends with men after they’ve split up is because they hope that one day they’ll get back together again, and vice versa.”

“No. I wanted to be friends with Zac because I loved him as a friend.”

“And yet, he got another girl pregnant as soon as—shit.” Adam reached for her. Some truths were never easy to hear, but still. “Hey, I’m sorry.”

Evie looked down at his hand on her knee. “You don’t know Zac, and you don’t know me.”

Adam slowly removed his hand. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

She returned her gaze back to the view. “Yesterday Zac emailed me to say that they hadn’t told me because they didn’t want to upset me while I was traveling.”

“So why not wait until you got back home?”

“I think one of our friends must have found out and forced him to tell me. Or maybe he just felt guilty. Who knows?” Evie shook her head. “There’s no point dwelling on it, it is what it is.”

A few minutes passed, then Evie suddenly straightened her back as if she’d just read to the end of an old heavy book and slammed it shut. She then tapped out a tune on her knees, like she’d done when they’d set off from Broome.

Adam narrowed his eyes. “What?”

“What do you mean, what? I didn’t say anything.”

“I can hear that brain of yours working away, so give. I know you’re thinking something.”

She smiled sheepishly. “Some days I feel like I’m on a rollercoaster—”

“Oh, please.” He groaned. “If this is about that dickhead again, save it for one of your girlfriends.”

“He’s not a dickhead.” Evie bit her lip, suppressing a smile. “But no, it’s not about him. It’s about me.” She tapped on her knees again. “Remember I told you last night I had food poisoning several weeks ago? Well, I’ve also been very homesick, so homesick that on many occasions I’ve almost booked my return flight home. I’m all ready to scrap my plans, but then I see this.” She held out her hands again as if she were about to grab the world. “I see this, and I think to myself, I’m going to do it.”

“Do what?”

“Ask you to drive me through the Kimberleys.”