LITMIR.BIZ

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on the front veranda, wrapped in a sleeping bag laid on top of the ancient canvas of an army camp stretcher. He’d been an easy guest. Didn’t talk too much. Didn’t make a mess. Ate whatever was put in front of him.

      And he’d told Carly stories about the mythical Akurra serpent, whose activities explained the existence of the water holes and gorges all over this region, as well as the existence of Lake Frome. “Big rocks in the creek, Akurra’s eggs. Belly rumbles ’cos he drank too much saltwater, and you can feel it under your feet. You feel one day, Carly, if the earth ever shakes a bit, that’s Akurra.”

      Mythical serpents, real carpet pythons, yabby sandwiches … Carly took it all in stride. But her little legs probably weren’t yet equal to a dawn climb up Mount Hindley, so Callan suggested that this time they leave all the kids and Kerry behind. He packed breakfast and hiking supplies that evening, and suggested that Jac bring a day pack, too.

      “For water and sunscreen, your towel, your camera, and somewhere to put your sweatshirt once the sun gets higher.”

      Packing these items, Jac thought about the second schoolwork notebook that Callan had given her today—“In case you’re in danger of filling up the first one,” he’d said, and she dropped that in, also, along with a pen. She thought she was probably just giving herself unnecessary extra weight.

      If he hadn’t made that rash promise about a dawn hike to Jacinda down at the water hole last Saturday night, he wouldn’t be doing this, Callan knew. He set the alarm for five-thirty because they wanted to get to the top of Mount Hindley to see the sun’s first rays, but he didn’t need its jangling sound to rouse him. He’d already been lying awake since four forty-five, locked in a whole slew of illogical feelings.

      The thought of several glorious early morning hours alone with Jac made him heat up way too much.

      He just liked her.

      A lot.

      Her company. Her outlook. Her smile.

      And he was a man, so liking channeled itself into predictable pathways.

      Physical ones.

      He knew that his mood changed when he walked into the house and she was there. His spirits lifted, floating his energy levels up along with them the way empty fuel cans used to float the scrappy wooden rafts he and Nicky had hammered together to ferry around the water hole as kids.

      Who noticed?

      Someone had to.

      Mum wasn’t blind, and her hearing was pretty sharp, too. Could she hear the way his voice changed? He got more talkative, louder. He laughed more. He threw Carly up in the air, wrestled with Josh, told bad jokes to Lockie, got all three kids overexcited before bedtime just because he was too keyed up himself and couldn’t keep it dammed back.

      And Jacinda reacted the same way.

      He could see it and hear it and feel it because all of it echoed exactly what was happening inside him.

      Their eyes met too often. They found too many reasons to share a smile. The smallest scraps of conversation took on a richer meaning. Shared coffee in the mornings was cozier. Jokes were funnier. It took him longer to wind down enough to sleep at night.

      Sometimes he felt so exhilarated by it, as if he were suddenly equipped to rule the world. Or his corner of it, anyhow—those six hundred thousand acres that impressed her so much.

      The new mustering yard was great, structured to minimize stress and injury to the cattle. His yield and his prices were definitely going to improve. The long-range weather forecast held the hope of rain, and he’d put in some new dams just last year—Jacinda called them ponds—to conserve as much of the runoff as he could.

      He’d talked to her about all this and she’d listened and nodded and told him, “I had no idea so much research and thought had to go into running cattle in this kind of country.” And he’d thought, yes, he had skills and knowledge and strength that he took for granted, things that could impress a woman that he’d never seen in that light before.

      Not even with Liz, because Liz had grown up with cattlemen and had taken it all for granted, too, just the way he did.

      What did Mum see?

      What did Pete see?

      Pete had irritated the heck out of him, earlier in the week, with the ancient-tribal-wisdom routine that he liked to pull on unsuspecting victims from time to time.

      No, it wasn’t really a con, because Pete was pretty wise in a lot of ways, but Callan had felt conned, all the same. He’d felt naked and exposed.

      What did Pete see?

      What was all that biblical-style stuff about seasons turning and everything having its place and its time? He liked Pete’s conversation better when it was about fence posts and calving. On Wednesday afternoon, they’d had a big, pointless argument about wildflowers.

      “Desert pea? It’s too soon, Pete. We had those freak thunderstorms a month or two ago, I know, but the flowers won’t be out for a few weeks yet, I’d say. Maybe not until spring.”

      “Yeah, but happens that way, sometimes. So busy saying it’s too soon, and that’s right when you see ’em, red flowers dripping on the ground like blood, right where the rainwater soaked into the ground.”

      “I still say it’s too soon.”

      “You want your friend to see ’em before she goes,” Pete had said. It was a statement, not a question. “You’re not happy, because you think she won’t.”

      And he was right.

      Callan liked Jacinda so much, he wanted to show her dawn from Mount Hindley, and Pete’s ancestors’ rock carvings farther up in the gorge, and the bloodred, black-eyed Sturt’s desert pea flowers blooming on his land.

      “Got your camera?” he asked her, as they walked out to the four-wheel-drive parked in its usual crooked spot in front of the house.

      They moved and spoke quietly because the kids were still asleep. Mum’s light was on. She’d have made her early morning cup of tea and would be drinking it in bed, in her quilted dressing gown. She’d be dressed and over at the main house before Carly and the boys had finished wiping the sleep from their eyes.

      “Yep,” Jacinda answered, holding up her day pack. “Remembered it this time.” She shivered a little.

      “Cold?” he asked. It wasn’t an award-winning question. Of course she was cold. So was he. They’d need to get moving before they would warm up.

      “A bit, but I’m fine.”

      He liked that about her, too. She didn’t complain. Being cold or hungry or scared or wet … or confronted by a carpet python … or teased about drooling … was never enough on its own to spoil her mood. She took things in stride, just like her daughter did.

      Yeah, but there were limits.

      Monday morning, five days ago, on the veranda.

      Sheesh, what had he said?

       You think you’re the only one it’s ever happened to?

       Callan, idiot, you can’t say things like that in a naked moment and then drop it and refuse to talk.

      It was still sitting there, the conversational elephant that they both pretended they didn’t see. Jac didn’t know what he’d meant, and he wasn’t going to tell her, so they would both just have to ride it out until the memory of Monday morning wasn’t so fresh and didn’t matter anymore.

      Maybe papering it over with fresh memories of things like going into Leigh Creek with Carly, eating quandong pies, climbing Mount Hindley at dawn and watching yellow-footed rock wallabies come down to drink would help.

      He warmed the engine and took his usual semicircular route around and out of the yard. They parked beside the dry creek bed under the

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