Chapter 14
first.
And then the music.
The noise was coming from the opposite corner of the campground where people gathered around a camp barbecue. He looked in the truck for Evie, but it was empty and so was his tent. Another roar of cheers from the corner and a choir of male voices belted out what sounded like a well-known chorus. Adam pursed his lips. She was there. Right in the middle of the party.
So much for her being curled up on the back seat.
He’d leave her to it, then. He’d have a shower then lie in his tent, aim for sleep and try to forget the evening he’d just had.
But all his stuff was in the truck, which was locked, and Evie still had the keys.
The delightful smell of barbecuing meat reached his nostrils. He looked across the campground, weighing up his options. Approach a party of strangers or lie in his own sweat? Wash and change, or fall asleep in his clothes for the second night running? Get depressed by his own company or spend a few minutes with Evie?
Adam ambled across the campground. Of course, he’d only chosen Evie because he needed the distraction and she had a habit of making him forget who he was. He got nearer to the party, keeping to the shadows as he surveyed the scene. A light had been rigged to the campground’s power supply, along with what looked like an iPod deck and speakers which were perched on a canvas stool.
The barbecue sizzled with meat, poked with a fork by a bare-chested guy in Bermuda shorts. Discarded plates were piled to one side next to several empty bottles of beer and wine. Adam spotted Evie leaning against the hood of a four-wheel drive, similar to his own, with one of the tall plastic beakers she’d bought earlier that afternoon in her hand. Her head tilted and swayed as she talked. The older woman next to her whispered something in her ear which made them both burst out laughing. They clinked beakers in whatever toast had just been made, then Evie chose that moment to look in his direction.
“Adam!” she cheered, raising the beaker to him. “You’re back.”
Everyone turned to him and he had no choice but to step out into the light. Like standing in the doorway instead of sitting on the sofa, staying in the shadows would only draw more attention. He raised a hand and offered one of his friendliest smiles. “Hey.”
“Come and meet the Glasweeegians from Brisbane!” Evie was drunk and she was grinning at him like he was the best thing ever. Adam smiled and stepped closer. “Originally from Scotland, they now live in Oz and tour the country whenever they can. Isn’t that so amazingly fantastic?”
“This the wee fella you’re paying to chum you along the Gibb?” The woman next to Evie raked her gaze up and down Adam’s body. “Aye, I can see what you mean.”
The woman burst out laughing again and Evie’s guilty eyes caught his, leaving no doubt as to what story she’d been telling. Adam held her naughty gaze. Very mature, Evie. But, those eyes. He couldn’t keep a straight face for long. He winked at her. “I came for the keys.”
“Ah, stop awhile and grab yerself a drink,” the woman said as Evie handed him the keys. “Plenty of stubbies there. Help yerself.”
Adam didn’t know what a stubby was, but Evie helped him out by reaching into a cooler.
She handed him a short green bottle of light colored beer. “We all chipped in for the booze and food.”
Adam didn’t really feel like drinking but took the bottle anyway. “Thanks.”
He wouldn’t stay long. But then the woman—Janet—began to introduce him to everyone else. Adam heard the names like Heidi, Baz and Toby, but the others were mumbles and slurs he didn’t quite catch.
“Nice to meet you all.” Adam smiled at the group then leaned over to talk quietly to Evie. “Two parties in one day. You’re quite the social butterfly.”
“I told you, I’m extremely likable.”
Just then a wiry looking guy wearing board shorts and a washed-out gray vest came over to join them. His surfer-dude blond hair was tied back in a short ponytail and he held a beer in one hand and a bottle of white wine in the other. He waggled the wine at Evie but she declined with a bright smile.
“This is Pete,” Evie said. “Pete, this is Adam, my travel partner.”
“How’s it goin’?” Pete’s eyes darted from Evie to Adam then back again. He was young—early to mid-twenties—and only a few inches taller than Evie.
Adam greeted him. “You don’t sound very Scottish.”
“Nah, mate.” He angled his head to indicate two other guys next to an army-style Jeep with a roof tent. “We’re from Perth.”
Perth. Damn.
“Cool setup.” Adam nodded at as his mind raced elsewhere. Had these guys heard Michael Adams had been in their hometown? “How long have you been traveling?”
“Six weeks.”
“Pete and his friends have just done the Gibb River Road,” Evie said, and Adam let out his breath. Six weeks traveling in a patchy reception zone was enough time for someone to lose touch with the world. Adam took a sip of his lukewarm beer and tuned in to Evie’s easy chatter. They made small talk about the Canadian Rockies and frozen winters, something the population of Perth never truly experienced, then someone cranked up the music and the Glaswegians began to dance.
“I love this song!” Evie darted off to join their scuffed-up circle. In no time at all, she was swinging her arms high in the air, then low around her hips, pulsing her body to the jagged beat. A wood sprite dancing in a forest.
He should leave now. Evie was busy having fun and he had he the truck keys. Poised with goodbyes, Adam turned to Skinny Pete but something on the dance floor had caught Pete’s attention. Adam followed his eyeline instead. Evie was bending over to refasten the strap of her sandal, the hem of her shorts riding up over the globe of her butt. Adam’s eyes shot back to Pete. No wonder the little punk looked like he was ready to devour dessert.
The song ended and Evie returned, her skin flushed and sprinkled with sweat. She wiped her forehead and smoothed back her hair, the bun on top listing to one side. Pete held up the bottle of wine he’d placed by his feet.
But Adam cut in first. “You wanna take a walk with me?”
There was a moment of surprise but then Evie beamed at him, like he’d just handed her a diamond necklace. Adam grinned back. He couldn’t help it.
She had that effect on him.
to politely extract themselves from the group. Skinny Pete, knowing there was no further action to be had, slunk back to join his brothers and Janet, having hugged Evie several times over, only let her go when Evie promised to join them on a boat tour in the morning.
“You’re going on a boat tomorrow with a hangover?” Adam asked as they left the noise and music behind.
“Who said I’m going to have a hangover?”
They reached the camp kitchen, a two-walled shelter under which stood several banks of stainless-steel sinks. Evie dipped her head under a tap and drank from cupped hands.
“I rarely get them,” she said when she surfaced for air. She sucked her wet lips dry then pulled a face. “Yum, warm water.”
Adam grinned. He’d come to know all about the frustration of no cold water. He realized after that first shower in Broome—and all the showers thereafter—that the ground pipes were so baked this time of year that no matter how long the water was left running, it would never run truly cold. “How much have you had to drink?”
“Two or three glasses.” She wiped her hands on her shorts. “It’s hard to tell because that guy Pete kept topping me up.”
I just bet he did. “He kept staring at your ass when you were dancing.”
Evie hooted. “No way.”
But she was still smiling when they walked out of the campground. Did she find the skinny guy’s attention flattering? He had to be younger than her by a good five years and he looked like he’d flake after twenty push-ups, if not ten. But maybe she needed a confidence boost after her dickhead ex had gotten another woman pregnant.
They walked the path along the mudflats, falling silent as they listened to the night. Stars glittered like diamonds.
“Do you know something, Adam?” she said. “We never actually introduced ourselves yesterday.”
At that café in Broome? Was that really only yesterday?
“I already knew your name. The woman in the campground told me.”
“And I knew yours too.”
He was about to ask what her point was but realized in her drunken haze, she probably didn’t have one. And if she ever did, it had long since been drowned in wine. “So how did you meet those people?”
“Janet walked past while I was cooking. We got chatting, she invited me over for a drink, then the Aussie guys with the roof tent joined us.” Evie talked like these things happened all the time. Maybe they did to her. He didn’t know. He didn’t know much about her at all. She was a blank sheet of paper, and as far as she was concerned, so was he.
As they walked, Adam listened to Evie chat about the places she’d seen in Australia and how scared she’d been when she’d first touched down, a sole traveler in a foreign land. “When I think back, I still can’t believe I did it,” she was saying. “Zac and I used to do everything together. We used to have the same interests. We . . .” She trailed off when he threw her a pointed look. “Never mind.”
He was sorry to cut off her flow but glad she’d paid attention to rule number three. There was something about that dickhead that stuck in his craw and he was enjoying this walk too much for him to ruin it.
“What’s next for you after Darwin?” he asked.
She reeled off towns and sites with ease. Alice Springs, Adelaide, Melbourne. “And then, I’ve planned my last couple of weeks in Tasmania before returning to Sydney and flying home. What about you?”
“Would it surprise you that I haven’t thought about it?”
“No, it wouldn’t.” She mock-tutted at his lack of organization. “You said you were going to stay with your friends until Christmas.”
“Yeah, I’m getting kinda curious to see what Christmas in the tropics is like.”
“It makes me sad that I’m not spending it with my mum. It’ll be the first time ever. I offered to pay for her flight out here, but she teaches and the Christmas holidays are relatively short for such a long trip. She won’t have time to get over jet lag before she has to fly back, and besides, she gets funny when I spend money on her.”
Evie funding the majority of this trip had that effect on him too. Not that Evie seemed bothered about paying for everything, which made him wonder. “What do you do for work back home?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Adam narrowed his eyes. “Circus clown?”
“Oh, ha-ha, but no. I’m an accountant.”
He whistled, impressed. “Big job.” He didn’t know what he’d been expecting but of course, it made sense now. All her talk of budgets, costs and schedules. “You must be pretty smart.”
“I do all right.”
“And you were cleaning showers because . . .”
“Because Lorraine needed someone and I had nothing to do except mope around feeling homesick.” She shrugged. “And I guess it’s not in me to turn down a bit of cash when it’s offered.”
“I’m trying to picture you in a suit.”
“I don’t often wear them. Not all accountants do.”
He was about to say that all of his did but stopped just in time. He currently had three—two for different aspects of the Adams-Williams empire that had been built over the past year, and one, Brandon Wahlberg, dealing with his personal accounts. It was Brandon who Adam had emailed tonight to discuss the funds he’d like to release for Evie when their time in the Kimberleys came to an end.
When they reached a set of railings, Evie stopped walking to peer over the side. “Did you have fun catching up with Canada tonight?”
“Yeah, best time ever.” The way she cocked her head told him he’d failed to keep out the bitterness and now she was looking at him with her X-ray vision. What would she say if he pulled out his phone and showed her all the bullshit he’d read earlier? The craziness on Twitter, his apparent impotence, Saskia’s raging $50,000 bounty. All the paragraphs of legalese from his lawyers concerning defamation and divorce. “I would have had more fun staying with you.”
The words were out before he’d even had time to think about them. Evie blinked as if she were maybe trying to figure out if he’d just spun her a line. Adam stared down at her mouth, mesmerized by how she nibbled at her plump bottom lip and right on cue, his naked image of her popped into his head again.
“Adam?”
“Yes.”
“What are you thinking about?”
Other than your naked body and how I feel less sexually challenged around you? Well, lots of things. His head ached with it all and the shitty evening he’d had—but mostly, he was thinking about what he would be doing, here, right now, if he really was just some Canadian guy traveling around Australia in a beat-up truck.
“I’m thinking about kissing you.”
Evie’s long lashes flickered but his admission didn’t seem to surprise her as much as it did him.
She pulled herself up to sit on the railings, bringing the top of her head level with his chin. “Why don’t you, then?”
Because kissing her would make everything a thousand times more complicated and Adam didn’t do complications. That was Michael’s world.
“We’ve only known each other for two days,” he told her, backtracking before it got awkward. Why had he been so compelled to tell her the truth when he was supposed to be living a lie? “You might slap my face, accuse me of taking advantage of you when you’re drunk.”
“I’m not that drunk.”
Right. “What if you get all weepy on me like you did last night?” He patted his pockets. “I didn’t bring any tissues.”
A small laugh escaped her. “I don’t feel remotely close to tears.”
“What if you treat me like a rebound guy? Make me feel all used and worthless come morning.”
“I’m not on the rebound.”
The moonlight pooled in her eyes as she gazed back at him. He could make jokes but what would actually happen if he really did position his lips just a breath away from hers?
Evie slowly traced a line over his lips with her fingers. “I’ve never kissed a man with a beard before.”
Adam felt the tug of her touch in his groin. It would be so easy to pull her toward him, to place his lips on hers and taste.
But he wrapped his hand gently around her fingers instead, felt them go limp with rejection. “We shouldn’t.”
She searched his face with her lie-detector gaze. “Is there someone else?”
“No.” He held her hand firm. “You’re paying me to escort you to Darwin. You’re technically my boss. I don’t want to mess this up.”
Looking away, Evie considered this a moment and eventually nodded, quietly accepting what he’d said and refraining to ask the questions he could see gather like clouds in her mind.
“So you still want to travel with me?” she asked.
“Sure, I do.” And after the night he’d had, he was looking forward to it more than ever. “We made a deal.”
“Phew.” She hopped down from the railing. “For a second there I thought you were going to chicken out.” Then she looked him over from head to toe, a furrow forming on her brow. “Not that you look like the type of guy who’d chicken out of anything.”
But the glint in her eye told him she wasn’t talking about a self-drive tour of the Kimberleys anymore. Adam had chickened out of kissing her.
And they both knew it.