Red Dirt Heart 04 - Red Dirt Heart 4 (7 page)

Two steps forward, one step back.

Whether Charlie busied himself with his new venture in this disadvantaged kids program as a distraction or as compensation for losing Shelby, I decided it didn’t matter.

He was busy and back to smiling, and that was enough for me.

He had more phone calls and another meeting with Peter about his proposed week stay for no more than two carefully selected troubled teens. And the week after that, he had meetings with Greg and Allan and had to fly to Tennant Creek for another overnight Beef Farmers meeting.

He was right when he said he had a busy time coming up, but a busy Charlie was a happy Charlie. He’d always said it was me that couldn’t sit still, but he was no different. He thrived under pressure, handled it all in stride and made it look so easy.

Yes, we had the station running smoothly. Things were streamlined and managed well. Even with Charlie not there, for just a one-night meeting or longer, everyone did their part and pulled their weight. The cattle collars and bore pump regulators helped more than we thought possible. Charlie could, as much as he disliked it, spend more time in the office getting the paperwork done.

We were getting things ready for the winter muster. It was just a few weeks away now, and I knew when Charlie got back from Tennant Creek, organising and planning for it would go into full swing.

And I loved mustering.

Loved
it.

Being out there in the middle of the desert, sleeping on the dirt, riding horses and motorbikes, corralling cattle, talking and laughing around a campfire at night and by the end of the week, being so bone-tired you could barely spit.

And I loved doing it with Charlie.

I’d been here over two years, and this muster would be my fifth. Each time, Charlie and I would spend the first few days with the guys and then branch off and take the herd of cattle from a different tack. It gave us a few days of just us, riding our horses side by side, working together during the day, curling up to one another by the fire at night.

But this year, there was no Shelby.

I didn’t know what that meant for our muster. Would he ride Lizard, George’s horse? Would he take a dirt bike instead, or maybe the old ute? Would he come at all?

It was something I would have to broach with him, and as much as he didn’t want to talk about the possibility of getting another horse, it was something he’d have to consider soon.

He needed to grieve and move on.

It’d been months since he’d been on a horse. It was time.

It was late in the afternoon, not far from dinnertime, when Charlie got back to the homestead. I crossed the yard from the shed where I was working and met his overnight bag in the hall. The bathroom door was shut.

I waited for him to come out, and he found me leaning against the hall wall, smiling at him. “Hello, stranger.”

He gave me a tired smile. “I’ve been gone one night.”

“One night,” I conceded, “but two long and lonely days.”

He took some slow, tired and stressed steps to stand in front of me, and he leaned in and melted against me. He took a deep breath as his lips kissed my neck. “You know the best thing about going away?” he asked, nuzzling into my neck.

My head fell back, giving him more skin to kiss and lick. “What’s that?” I whispered, trying not to moan.

“Coming home to you.”

My body reacted to him, his touch, his words. “Charlie?” I breathed his name.

“Hmm?”

“Bathroom? Bedroom?”

“Boys?” Ma called out from the kitchen.

Charlie didn’t care. With a burst of renewed energy, he pushed me into our room. “Five minutes,” he called back to Ma and the door shut loudly behind us.

Laughing, I pulled him onto the bed with me. “Just five minutes?”

“Shut up. I’m so horny, it’ll be lucky to be one minute,” he said, getting to his knees so he could unzip his jeans. He freed his hard cock and gave it a squeeze, and he crawled up my body. The look in his eyes was smouldering.

Jesus.

I quickly undid my fly, needing any kind of friction I could find. Charlie growled and batted my hand away, taking both our cocks in his hand as he leaned over me, sliding and pumping, kissing and sucking.

I don’t even think we made it to
one
minute.

But he was considerably less tense at dinner.

* * * *

Charlie had his cuddle with Gracie before Trudy and Bacon took her back to their home for bath and bed, and then had playtime on the floor with Nugget. The wombat crawled all over him, tickling his face with his nose kisses, and they wrestled with Rumble Bear before Nugget got bored and demanded belly rubs.

Charlie looked happy enough, but jeez, he looked tired. “Ugh,” Charlie groaned from lyin’ on the floor. He held his hand up at me. “Help me up.”

“You
that
tired?”

“I shouldn’t have laid on the floor,” he said. “I’ve got stuff to do.”

I took his hand and pulled him to his feet. He grabbed his laptop bag, and we left Ma and George watching the TV and went into the office.

He sat in his chair, rubbed his hands across his face and through his hair before sighing loudly. “Greg said there’s a broker doing the rounds.” He sounded a mix of tired and defeated.

“A broker? Doing the rounds of what?”

“Buying and selling properties. Cattle stations mostly.” He leaned down and plugged the laptop cord into the power outlet. “I guess I should be expecting a call sometime.”

I stared at him. “We’re not selling. Not for any amount of money,” I said adamantly, a little more harshly than I intended.

Charlie smiled widely at me. “No.
We’re
not.”

“I didn’t mean that how it sounded. I mean,
you’re
not selling. I mean, you can’t, Charlie. This place is everything. It’s my home. Tell me you’re not even—”

“Travis,” he said softly, cutting me off. “
We’re
not selling anything. Not while I have breath in me.”

I exhaled loudly, putting my hand to my hammering heart. “God, you scared me.”

He smiled warmly at me. “I liked the
we’re not selling
part of your little speech.”

I snorted. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s not my place to say, really. If you wanted to sell, I wouldn’t stop you.”

He was quiet then; what he was thinking, I could only guess. After a long few seconds, he said, “The broker called Greg and Allan. Greg twice, actually.”

“Is he considering it?”

“Nope. Told the guy to stop calling him, said it was harassment.”

“Pretty tame for Greg,” I allowed.

Charlie smiled. “Allan wasn’t so polite.”

“I could imagine,” I said with a laugh. “I like Allan and the way he gets things done.”

Charlie smiled, but it didn’t last long. “The broker’s got some farmers around Tennant Creek already. Or so Allan said.”

“They’re selling?”

Charlie nodded. “Yep. Tough life, little rewards, I guess. Some aren’t as lucky as us…”

I could tell Charlie needed to talk, so I just listened.

“Greg said it’s not the farmers’ faults. We know that. It’s hard out here and if someone offers the right amount…” Charlie sighed. “But Greg said it ain’t the broker’s fault either. That he’s just the man in the middle. If people want to sell up, I guess he’s just doing his job.”

I could tell by the set of his brow, it didn’t sit well with him. “You don’t agree?”

“I dunno. I guess I can see his point,” he admitted. “But that’s not what concerns me.”

“What is it?”

“My first question was, who is this broker working for? Which conglomerate is buying up land across the Territory? Who is trying to dominate sales and influence the market? That’s what I wanna know.”

I was smiling at him.

“What?”

“Just you. Not the
who
s or the
where
s, but the
why
s. That’s a very strategic approach. Very smart.”

“Greg and Allan said the same thing,” he admitted. “They didn’t even consider that aspect. I don’t see how they couldn’t. So I dunno know about bein’ smart. I’m just wary of underhandedness and dodgy business deals. That’s all.”

“Smart,” I repeated. “That’s what makes Sutton Station what it is.”

“My father was the same,” he said. “Could smell a rat a mile off.”

Charlie could now admit to his personality traits that were his father’s without guilt or self-degradation. He owned the positive traits, like business sense and a bullshit-o-metre, and he equally disowned the negative traits with as much vigour.

It was just another testament to how far he’d come.

“You think something doesn’t smell right?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Won’t know, really, until this guy calls me. If he calls me, that is.”

“If his list of businesses is alphabetical, you’re toward the end of his list.”

Charlie flicked up with his half-smile. “Yeah. Or maybe he’s spoken to other farmers out there who told him he’d be wasting his time.”

“Or there’s that.”

He was quiet for a while, his busy weeks catching up with him. “You’re tired,” I said.

He nodded slowly. “I am.”

“We need to talk about the muster,” I started, but this was no time for bringing up the fact he didn’t have a horse. “Tomorrow, yeah? We’ll start getting it sorted out tomorrow?”

He nodded again, smiling this time. “Yeah. Everything here go okay? Nothing I need to know about?”

“No. Everything went just fine.”

“Nugget wasn’t any trouble?”

“No more than usual. He didn’t bite me these last two days if that’s what you’re asking.”

He snorted. “I should hope not.” He bit back a yawn. “Oh, Peter’s bringing some department head out here day after tomorrow. They need to check that the station will be suitable for placing kids here. They’ll also need to run police checks on the staff. Is that okay with you?”

I nodded. “Sure, why wouldn’t it be?”

Charlie shrugged. “I should have asked before now. I’ll ask the others at breakfast in the morning, and if anyone has a problem with it, then the whole thing stops right now.”

I watched him for a moment before standing up and holding out my hand. I waited for him to take it. Whatever
stuff
he had to do, could wait. “You need to go to bed.”

“Is that right?” He smirked.

“Yep.” Then I leaned in and whispered in his ear. “And just so you know, I’ll make you come so hard you’ll sleep like the dead.”

Charlie took my hand and all but dragged me to our room. He called out, “G’night,” to Ma and George as we went past but by the time they’d answered, he’d already shut the bedroom door and had his shirt off, and I was toein’ out of my boots.

* * * *

Breakfast was the usual array of bacon, sausages, eggs, toast, coffee and cereal. Not to mention the noise and the mess, most of it coming from Gracie sittin’ up in her highchair throwing more food on the floor than what went in her mouth. But mostly it was fun.

Yes, we discussed what work would get done, but there were always laughs. Gracie’s highchair could have been pulled up at anyone’s chair on any given day, but today she was in between me and Charlie. He was feeding her what he called “soldiers” of toast, which she mostly gummed to death. He even spoonfed her porridge, which he detested and did his best not to gag at, but for that little blue-eyed, button-nosed girl, he’d suffer through the smell of anything.

When breakfast was just about done, he cleared his throat. “Um, before you go, there’s something I need to run past you all.”

All eyes were on him, waiting for him to continue.

“Uh, for me to get the green light for this youth program, they’ll need to do a police background check on all staff.” He looked at each of them in turn. “I need to know if you’re okay with that. It’s perfectly fine if you’re not. Don’t feel that you have to be. You guys are my first priority, not anyone else.

“You don’t have to say anything now or in front of anyone else, just come and see me on the quiet. I won’t say anything to anyone else as to why or why not the program isn’t going ahead, and I won’t hold it against you in any way. Like I said, you guys are more important to me and this station than some kids I’ve never met.”

He seemed to struggle with that, more than I would have assumed he would. He was more nervous than I’d seen him in a while. So I waited until the others were gone and he was cleaning up shredded, soggy bits of toast off the floor and piling them onto the table.

“Hey,” I said quietly. “Everything okay?”

“No. There’s globs of porridge everywhere. That shit is disgusting hot, but it’s putrid when it’s cold.”