Mountain Ash (13 page)

‘Spoilsport!'

‘Party-pooper!'

Jodie hid the controller behind her back, as Beryl Beaton came abreast of her and bent to gather up her excited little mutt. Stacey appeared from nowhere, presumably having decided no one was in the house.

‘Jodie. How lovely to meet you.' Beryl held out a long-fingered hand, which was adorned with diamond rings of all shapes and sizes. ‘I've just been out the back having a chardonnay with my neighbour, Mr Fitz.'

The woman seemed quite flushed and there was no way Jodie was going to mention that the back of her skirt was rucked up and tucked into her underpants.

‘Lovely to meet you, Mrs Beaton. I'm Jodie and this is my friend, Stacey.'

Beryl nodded towards Stacey, who was doing her best not to laugh. A man appeared from the direction Beryl had come. Jodie guessed this was Mr Fitz. He was tucking in his shirt.

‘You've come to drop off your machine?'

‘Yes. Thank you in advance for taking it to the hall tomorrow.'

‘No worries at all,' said Beryl as Mr Fitz came up beside her and surreptitiously tried to flick her skirt to its rightful place. He failed, which sent Stacey into a coughing fit.

‘I'll just go get a drink,' gasped Stace.

Jodie ignored her. What a day this was turning out to be. Somehow she had to get the remote back to the hall table without Beryl seeing it. She'd managed to grab a few sneaky glances at the car. There wasn't any damage. By the grace of
God, the door must have stopped just in time. Perhaps if she scrunched the remote up in her hand?

‘I'll just show you where I put my Pfaff, shall I?' said Jodie, leading the way back to the front door. She prayed Mrs Beaton would follow her. Stacey must have told the other two to shut up as mercifully they were silent. Well, except for some rough squawks of pain coming from the rear seat of the ute. She prayed they were killing each other.

‘I hope you don't mind but I just placed it inside your foyer,' said Jodie. ‘It's such an expensive item that I didn't want it stolen.' She opened the wire door and let herself in. Stood with her back towards the hall table. Behind her she gently placed the remote on the table. Whew!

‘Of course. And Albert's the one who'll help me take the extra machines down to the hall tomorrow. Isn't he a dear? We may well get more people turn up who might want to sew but didn't have their stuff.'

‘Beryl runs sewing classes,' said Mr Fitz in a proud voice. ‘Teaches young girls to stitch.'

‘How lovely,' said Jodie, faintly. Beryl was full-on, just like her dog. Jodie backed her way towards escape. ‘Well, I'll see you tomorrow morning at ten. Thanks again for carting down my stuff.' Jodie opened the front door, waved and bolted back to the ute.

‘Ha!' came a voice from the back seat. Ange probably. ‘Did ya see that roller door
go
? It went down on that ride like a cowgirl on heat.'

‘Like Beryl with old Fitzy Ritzy,' replied Stace.

‘
Yeww!
' yelled the girls. And they dissolved into hysterical giggles.

Jodie shut her eyes. This was just getting better and better.

Not.

Getting to the showgrounds was simple. Finding an empty place to park and camp was difficult. Jodie was very glad she'd already dropped off her sewing stuff. Trucks, floats, utes and cars were parked cheek to jowl and rigs were still pouring through the gate. Why, she'd just seen a LandCruiser roll past with an old-fashioned Singer treadle sewing machine perched on the back of it. Who knew what the owner of the vehicle was going to do with that?

‘This'll have to do you lot,' said Stace as she jumped out of the ute. ‘I've got some drinking to be doing so I'm not driving another foot.' She had found a space up against the outside fence. It wasn't ideal as they got all the dust off the gravel road into the joint, but it was better than being miles away from the action. And that's where they'd be if they wanted a camp nearer the river.

Jodie got out and started unloading stuff from the back. Ange and Mel staggered to an upright position and promptly fell over in a tangle of limbs and gales of laughter.

‘Looks like the weekend started early,' said a bloke walking past.

Jodie cast him a glance and smiled, unaware of the effect her full-force grin had on people who'd never met her before. It caused the stockie – because that was what he was judging by his well-worn clothes and rumpled hat – to miss a beat in his stride. ‘Yes, you could say that. They've been drinking since we left home and that was a few hours back.'

He stopped. ‘Where's home?' he asked.

Jodie was deliberately vague. ‘Oh, back on the other side of the border. And you?'

‘We're from the Northern Territory,' said the man.

Jodie silently clocked the ‘we'. So he had a girlfriend, she thought, and then wondered why she felt a stab of regret over that fact.

‘Yes, Wal and I are on our way to a job near here. Thought we'd drop in at the rodeo for the weekend.'

Unless Wal was his girlfriend's nickname, ‘we' was another bloke. So he was either a
Brokeback Mountain
type or travelling with a friend.

‘You want a drink, Ash?' This came from Stace who, sensing a likely sort, had materialised out of nowhere. ‘And what about you, mate? We've got beer, rum, Cruisers. What's your poison?'

The bloke gave her a grin and raised a six-pack of cans in his hand. ‘Already got some, but thanks all the same. I better move along and give one to Wal, though, before he thinks his throat's cut from lack of lubrication.'

Jodie smiled again as she noted the bloke, whom she judged to be in his mid thirties, track his eyes across her face, her body. He did it in such a way that she felt appreciated rather than violated. His eyes were a clear blue, like a brilliant summer sky.
Almost the same colour as Alex's but a shade darker, which made them more striking against his tanned skin. His hair, she thought, was brown, the little she could see of it under his hat. He had a strong square jaw; his teeth were even and white. His gaze as he looked at her was steady and when he smiled lines of laughter made the outsides of his eyes crinkle. He was damned attractive, she'd give him that.

‘I'll be seeing you a bit later on then,' he said, casting another pointed glance at Jodie.

Her heart skipped a beat but Jodie directed her gaze downwards. He is a cowboy, she told herself. One of those men who ride away at the slightest provocation. Plus she was already seeing someone. A man who was older, yes, but who was long-term steadiness personified. She didn't need to encourage the likes of this bloke.

‘Maybe,' she mumbled before grabbing her swag and heading towards the front of the ute.

She could hear Stacey yelling out goodbye. Mel and Ange were whistling cat-calls, no doubt at the man's Wrangler-clad arse. She wouldn't have expected anything less of those two but she was shocked at herself. Her heart was still thumping out of whack. ‘You do not find him attractive … you do not find him attractive …' she repeated under her breath. She kept her head down and concentrated on undoing the swag strap. There was no way she was going to allow her eyes to follow the man.

‘What the fuck?' said Stacey, eventually coming over to Jodie, as she tied a tarp to the fence. ‘That was one lollypop on legs and you didn't even flirt with him. He was yours, Ash, and you didn't reel him in!'

‘I'm taken,' she said.

‘Since when? Just cause some old bloke wants to jump your bones doesn't mean you can't have some fun yourself. While the tomcat's away the mice do play and all that kinda stuff.'

‘Not this mouse,' said Jodie, pulling at her truckie's knot to ensure her tarp didn't fly away during the night and leave her and her swag with no shelter.

Stacey was still out to make a point. ‘You gotta loosen up a bit, Ashie. Have some fun. By all means go home and marry the old codger if that's what you want. I mean he's kinda attractive in an “older man” way. But here, now, let your hair down and just make sure McGregor is what you really want.'

Jodie swung around to look at her mate. ‘Stace, I want to have fun, believe me I do. But I'm not footloose and fancy-free like you. I'm not really single. I have responsibilities, namely Milly, and much and all as one half of me wishes I could be free, the other half knows, on Monday, I go back to being a mother again. Singledom and all its fun is over. And even though I have a child, I don't fit into the “married with kids” camp either.' Jodie sighed and bent down to undo the strap on her swag. She kicked at the canvas to unroll the mattress and shoved her bed under the tarp. ‘That's why I do things like sewing
and
campdrafting. I don't have a foot in either the single or married camp so I just have to make my own rules.'

‘Exactly,' said Stace with a triumphant look on her face. ‘So you go sewing tomorrow and then come back and party with us. That should keep both the opposing “little Miss CWA” and the “girl who just wants to have fun” sides of you happy.'

Stacey looked so smug, Jodie didn't have the heart to tell her she'd missed the point entirely.

But then had she? thought Jodie to herself later on. She was sitting in the grandstand watching some people work their horses in the arena.

Who said she couldn't have the best of both worlds? The community? Those Catholic women sheltering their precious sons? She'd barely graced the doorway of the church since she'd arrived in town, the only time being for her father's funeral. Who cared what people she didn't know thought? But then what about her father? The man who'd frowned upon her parking outside the pub, for Friday or Saturday night drinks after work. ‘You don't want to be getting a reputation,' he'd said. Maybe he'd had a point but he wasn't here now to worry about what she did.

‘Penny for them?' A man sat down beside her. It was the cowboy she'd been trying to forget about.

Jodie cast wildly around. ‘Oh, I was just thinking how that horse out there moved like mine.'

‘You've got a ride here?' The man sounded surprised.

Jodie frowned, affronted. Didn't he think she could ride? ‘You didn't have a horse float at the back of that ute,' he said with a self-conscious smile. ‘My mistake.'

Jodie felt awful. Her face always showed her thoughts. ‘No. I should apologise. I thought you were insinuating I couldn't ride. Which, I probably can't, not like those girls out there anyway.' Jodie threw her hand towards the arena. ‘Parnie, that's my horse, and I are just learning the ropes.'

The man beside her chuckled. ‘Yeah well, I can only ride a quiet horse myself.'

Jodie somehow doubted that. The man walked with bow-legs. You didn't move like that unless you'd spent half your life in the saddle.

‘Look, maybe we should start again.' He stuck out his hand. ‘I'm Nate and you're Ash, am I right?'

Jodie hesitated a moment, then nodded.

‘Just Ash?'

Jodie smiled. ‘Yes, just Ash.' Her fingers were engulfed by Nate's hand, causing little sparks of electricity to shoot up her arm. Stung, she dropped his handshake quickly. Nate didn't seem to notice a thing. He dropped his fingers then slouched forwards, head in hands, as though he was intent on what was going on in the arena. Jodie stuck her hand under her legs to let the warmth of her body dissipate the tingly feeling that still remained.

Apart from slaps of leather and pounding hooves out in front, silence settled between them. It stretched for quite a few minutes. This was obviously a bloke comfortable with ‘nothing to say'.

However, she felt like she had to say
something
to break the silence. ‘So, what do you ride?' It was a ridiculous question and Jodie cursed herself but, for the life of her, she couldn't think of anything else to say that was coherent. He was having that effect on her brain.

Nate seemed to wait a few beats before he responded, like he wasn't sure what to say either. He turned to face her and his eyes bored into hers with all their blue intensity. The way he was looking at her gave her goose bumps. Nice goose bumps, mind you. ‘I'm on my own at the moment.'

Did he mean he didn't have a horse or a woman?

‘But I'm working on it.'

Was he angling to pick up this weekend?

‘Couldn't find anything I wanted up until now.'

Someone like
her?

‘But a bloke's just told me about this really good campdrafter for sale.'

Jodie reined herself in, cursing inwardly for even
thinking
he might have been interested in her. After all, she was taken. Sort of. Wasn't she? That niggly voice persisted:
you find him attractive. In fact, more than attractive … downright bloody sexy
…

‘Perhaps you've heard of him? His name's Warrior.'

She was busily staring at his lips. They were so lush and sensitive looking. She wondered what they'd be like to ki–Warrior! Did he just say Warrior?

‘I've heard him mentioned,' she said, eyes cast down, frantically trying to get her mind back on track. If this bloke bought Warrior then Alex wouldn't be able to hassle
her
about him. That'd be one less thing to argue about. Alex.
Alex who?
‘What I did hear was all good.'

Nate was nodding. ‘Yeah, that's what this bloke said. I'll have to check it out further. Listen, I need to go now but are you around for the whole weekend?'

The way he said it was like there was an invitation or even a promise involved. Maybe he was interested after all?
You're taken, you're taken …

‘Here and there,' said Jodie, using the most noncommittal tone she could muster, which to her own ears sounded weaker than a used tea bag. ‘I've got a few things on.'

Nate gazed at her with interest. She noticed his face, handsome as it was, showed a map of many hours spent in the sun. Oh my God, he is such a honey. ‘So you
are
riding?' he said.

Jodie blinked. Regrouped. ‘No, my horse is at home. He's recovering from a little accident. Nothing serious.' Well, it didn't end up being serious, anyway.

‘So you're not riding?'

Why was he being so persistent? ‘No,' said Jodie. ‘I'm doing, well, a few other things, but I'll be around at night.'
You're taken, you're taken …
Sex only
happened
at night, according to her mother. Why was she thinking about sex, for fuck's sake!

Nate contemplated her a few more moments before getting up. He doffed his Akubra at her. ‘Well, Ms Enigmatic, I'll catch you this evening then.'

And he walked off, leaving her with a bird's eye view of one of the sexiest Wrangler arses she'd ever seen, a set of square, well-filled-out shoulders and manners good enough that he let an elderly lady go before him down the grandstand steps.

Far out. He was a dish. A full-on hat-wearing, horse-riding, bow-legged cowboy with a hefty reputation. With a body and face like that he'd
have
to have a reputation. He was as sexy as hell.

Every part of her was on high alert and screaming for him.

She was in a truckload of trouble.