Big Red was a couple of kilometres down the road, almost within sight of Casey’s heifers, and it took some serious urging to turn him around. Finally, the old bull gave in and headed for home but he wasn’t happy. Neither, for that matter, was Adam. He found no peace in these hills tonight, drew no comfort from the small, familiar things. He barely registered the setting of the sun other than to think that
she’d
be watching it from the verandah and that she’d find it stunning.
As he had found her.
Rousing him effortlessly, first to anger and then to desire and the hot, ferocious need for a woman beneath him. Taking an axe to his hard-earned solitude. Making him worry for her safety and that of the boy.
Adam had seen a king brown snake, deadly and aggressive, up by the cottage not two weeks back as he’d cleared out the garden bed, and he wondered if the woman,
Billie
, was as scared of snakes as Caroline had been or whether she’d know how to deal with one. He wondered what she’d do if the power went out, because it did on occasion. Wondered how she’d deal with a landscape of darkness.
And then there was the boy…
Dusk lay firmly upon the land by the time Adam and Blue manoeuvred Big Red through the gate and back onto Kincaid land. He found the break in the fence and added it to tomorrow’s job list. Big Red would need to go in the back paddock tonight, which meant adding another hour at least onto an already long day.
The front door of the cottage stood wide open, throwing light out onto the verandah, but woman and boy were nowhere to be seen. He should have put a screen door on that doorway years ago.
‘Go on, Blue.’ He motioned the dog towards the house. ‘Get on up to the house and stay.’ Blue dog, who knew what to do with a king brown or a red-bellied black snake or any one of a dozen other threats Adam could name.
The dog took a few steps towards the house, hesitated, and looked back at him.
‘Go,’ he ordered gruffly. ‘I’ll be back for you tomorrow.’
When they were gone.
Something was on the verandah. Billie heard the thump of it and after that a silence unlike any she’d experienced. An earthy, waiting silence that dared her to fill it with human noise and mocked her when she reached for the clock radio and found a station that offered up music. So what if she wasn’t used to the night sounds hereabouts? She’d
get
used to them soon enough.
Or not, if Adam Kincaid had his way.
Cup of peppermint tea time and a hot chocolate for Cal, but as Billie turned to pick up a couple of mugs a dark shadow moved outside the doorway. She let out a startled gasp and the shadow took off.
But then the shadow came back and slowly, warily, moved into the light.
Shining brown eyes. Two black-tipped pointed ears. A dog.
A dog with the audacity to stand there grinning at her while she took great gulping breaths and tried to stuff her pounding heart back inside her chest with her fist.
Adam Kincaid’s dog.
‘Nice doggy,’ she gasped, ‘Good dog.’ All the time wondering what this particular dog was doing
here
. He cocked his head to one side and stared at her, probably wondering if she was through with the hysterics. She was.
Mostly.
‘What happened?’ Cal skidded into the kitchen. ‘Oh.’
Oh
? A mildly surprised
oh
? That was it?
Cal dropped down beside the dog and patted his head. The dog responded with a tongue in Cal’s ear.
‘He’s thirsty,’ said Cal.
‘Really?’ But Billie filled a cereal bowl with water, and set it on the verandah. The dog took to it enthusiastically. ‘You were right.’ She looked around for Kincaid and saw him in the distance, driving his bull further down into the valley. She half expected the dog to go streaking after his master once he’d drunk his fill but the dog just stood there.
‘Off you go,’ she said, with a wave of her hands. ‘Pit stop’s over.’
The dog sat.
‘Can he come inside?’ asked Cal.
‘Does he
want
to come inside?’
Stupid question. The blue dog was
overjoyed
by that particular notion.
‘What do we do with him?’ asked Cal next. Not that they weren’t dog friendly – they’d just never had one.
‘I don’t know. Let Kincaid know he’s here, I guess. If he doesn’t know already.’ She had the man’s phone number – it was on the lease agreement – and she had her mobile. Billie fished it from her handbag.
What she didn’t have, was a signal.
Kincaid had mentioned that.
Billie returned her phone to her handbag. ‘Go home,’ she told the dog.
‘Maybe he just wants a rest,’ said Cal.
‘He looks pretty rested to me.’ But she let the dog follow Cal around the house, and she shut the kitchen door and turned the old-fashioned key in its lock before going from room to room, shutting doors and windows as she went so that no other creature could walk, crawl or slither in uninvited. She drew curtains and directed Cal to the shower, at which point the blue dog started following her around.
‘Why are you here?’ she asked the attentive canine. ‘You don’t
look
like the disobedient type. You want to go now?’
Billie opened the door. ‘No offence,’ she murmured. ‘But I don’t know you.’
Blue dog moped his way through the doorway and settled down on the doormat with a distinct air of martyrdom. Billie shut the door on him with a distinct sense of guilt.
Cal came out of the shower clean and then it was Billie’s turn to brave the tiny concrete bathroom and swap her driving clothes for a grey singlet and matching boxers.
Bedtime, then, for it had been a long day.
‘Blue’s still at the kitchen door,’ said Cal as she tucked him in. ‘I gave him water.’
‘Good work,’ she said and tugged at the light cord that dangled from the ceiling.
‘Mum!’
‘What?’
‘It’s dark.’
‘I know.’
‘Really dark.’ No mistaking the edge of panic in Cal’s voice. ‘I might read for a bit,’ said her son who was no enthusiastic reader. So it was lights back on and Billie hanging up clothes in her bedroom while Cal settled.
Eventually, Cal drifted off to sleep and Billie turned out the lights again and fumbled her way to the bed. This place was beautiful but she wasn’t used to it. Not the sounds of the night, the stillness or the darkness.
Eventually, she slept.
And slept better for knowing that Adam Kincaid’s dog was around.
Monday morning in Inverglen didn’t seem a whole lot busier than Sunday afternoon had been. Billie parked alongside a handful of dusty vehicles in the wide main street and took a quick survey of the shops. Bakery, newsagent, greengrocer, Chinese restaurant; the faded signs matched the faded window displays, but the trees along the footpath were lovely and the benches beneath them added a welcoming touch.
‘Can I try a pie?’ asked Cal when they spotted the bakery.
‘You’ve already had breakfast.’
‘Yeah, but that was hours ago.’
‘It’s nine-thirty am.’
‘Feels like lunchtime.’
He had a point. Billie dug in her back pocket for her wallet. ‘One for each of us.’
‘What about a cream bun?’
‘Do I look like a soft touch to you?’
Cal nodded, grinning.
‘Such boundless optimism. I like that in a kid.’
‘So can I have one?’
‘No. We’ll grocery shop afterwards,’ she said, her attention caught by the pub on the corner of the next block. This was her first good look at the place she’d come to manage and from a distance it looked to be a grand old building. A well-built century-old blue-brick, it stood two stories high and had a red tin roof with the word ‘HOTEL’ painted on it in large silver letters. Wide verandahs surrounded the building. The verandahs were framed by intricate wrought iron railings. Huge double doors opened onto the lower verandah at regular intervals, and call it luck, fate, or the will of capricious gods, but there were two old men sitting out on that verandah, enjoying the morning sun, and one of them was Roly Stuart, publican and current owner of the Northern Arms, and the other was Arthur Bent, the toothless rental agent who hadn’t been answering his calls this morning. ‘Meet me over at the pub, okay?’
Cal nodded and headed for the bakery door. Billie headed for the pub. An empty dirt car park sat behind the pub on the side street and on from that ran a tidy little row of houses. Why couldn’t one of those have been empty and available for renting?
Beside the pub, along the main drag, stood a hardware store, and next to that a bank. Useful company. Well-maintained company, which was more than she could say for the pub. Because the closer Billie got the shabbier
it
got.
Roly Stuart had interviewed her in Sydney and waxed lyrical about the potential of the place.
Roly Stuart was quite the optimist.
‘Morning, Billie.’ Roly was a big man in his late sixties with a ready smile, a still-chiselled jaw and a penchant for informality. ‘Arthur here was just telling me you’ve already met.’
‘We met yesterday when I picked up the keys to the cottage.’ She turned to Arthur. ‘You need to find me somewhere else to live.’
‘I expect you’ve met Adam, then,’ said Arthur.
‘Last night. He thought I’d be older.’
‘Ha,’ said Arthur. ‘Wish I’d been there.’
‘Ha,’ said Billie. ‘Consider yourself lucky you weren’t. Adam Kincaid was also under the impression that I was country born and bred. Hard to say where he got
that
idea from.’
‘Yeah,’ said Roly. ‘Very hard.’
‘Maybe you should come fishing with me,’ Arthur told Roly. ‘I’m heading upriver.’
‘Not until you find me somewhere else to live,’ said Billie firmly.
‘That could be a problem,’ said Arthur. ‘Truth is, there just aren’t that many rental houses available. Owners either put their farmhands in them as part of a wage deal or let unoccupied houses go to ruin. Economics.’
‘Surely you can find me something?’
‘I’ll ring around, but it won’t be anything like the cottage. That was the pick of them.’
Not
what Billie wanted to hear.
‘You could always try and persuade Adam to reconsider,’ said Arthur. ‘I wouldn’t have sent you out there if I hadn’t figured it was worth a shot.’
‘It was definitely worth a shot,’ said Roly. ‘What time are we going fishing?’
‘No fishing,’ said Billie. ‘Not until Arthur finds me somewhere else to live. As for you…’ Billie turned to her new employer. ‘You need to hire more cleaning staff.’ That was assuming he hired any cleaning staff at all.
‘What for?’ said Roly and the wonder of it all was that he was serious.
‘This verandah needs scrubbing, for starters. Not to mention the chairs, the tables, and the sidewalk.’
‘It’s cleaner inside.’
One hoped. ‘You’re not going to argue with me about cleaning this place, are you? You said you wanted more customers.’
‘Yes, but—
‘You also said you’d give me free rein to run things my way.’
‘You said that?’ Arthur’s tone was incredulous.
‘Yeah,’ said Roly glumly. ‘Don’t know what I was thinking.’
‘Shouldn’t you be on the phone trying to find me somewhere else to
live
?’ asked Billie sweetly.
‘She’s got a sharp tongue on her,’ said Arthur morosely as he levered himself from his chair and ambled towards the steps. ‘You should have picked that up during interview.’
‘I did,’ offered Roly. ‘I didn’t think she’d use it on
me
.’
Billie just smiled. ‘So…’ she said. ‘Where would you like me to start?’
Arthur was back ten minutes later with a list of available rentals.
‘The first one’s on the highway next to the truck stop,’ he said. ‘The second one’s a fair way out of town.’
‘How far out of town?’
‘Fifty kilometres. And the roof leaks.’
‘You’re welcome to live at the pub,’ said Roly. ‘There’s plenty of room upstairs.’
‘Thanks, Roly, but no.’ At the Royal in Sydney they’d had a couple of rooms and a small bathroom on the second floor, euphemistically called the manager’s apartment. Indeed, Cal had never known any different, but one of the reasons she’d come to Inverglen was to find a life beyond a drinking establishment and that wouldn’t happen if they were living in one.
‘I didn’t figure either of the houses would suit, so I took the liberty of calling Adam and explaining the situation,’ said Arthur. ‘He said you can stay on at the cottage until something else comes up.’
‘He said that?’
‘Well, no. Not exactly. By the terms of your contract, Adam has to give you six week’s notice before turfing you. You might want to consider this day one.’
‘I see.’ That definitely sounded more like the man she remembered from last night. ‘Are there any other real estate agents in town who might have something available?’
‘I’m it,’ said Arthur.
Oh, joy. ‘How confident are you of finding us somewhere else to live before the six weeks is up?’
‘Not a problem,’ said Arthur. ‘I’ll sort something out. Probably while fishing.’
‘So what else did Kincaid have to say?’ she asked warily.
A cadaverous grin split Arthur’s face almost in two. ‘Nothing I’d care to repeat.’
The trip out to the cottage seemed quicker the second time around. It helped that Billie knew where she was going and what to expect as the car crested the hill.
Four until eight, those were the working hours she and Roly had settled on for the rest of this first week. A good time to meet the regulars, Roly had said. Plenty of time to sort through whatever needed sorting; like getting Cal enrolled at school and buying his uniform and generally getting settled.
For now, they had a pretty little cottage on a hillside to call home, a sunny October afternoon on tap and nothing to fill it with but whimsy. Which suited Billie just fine and Cal less so.
Cal had been hoping to fill his afternoon with dog.
Blue dog, however, was nowhere in sight.
Cal took to his guitar and the conquering of a complicated blues riff. Billie showed him some alternate fingerings for the sequence and left Cal to figure out the most comfortable fit while she took a straw broom, that she’d found in the laundry, to the cobwebs on the verandah. Her son played well, she’d give him that. She’d made sure of that in the same way her musician parents had made sure of it with her.