Driving Her Crazy

FOUR



‘So, where to today?’ Sadie asked as she vaulted up into the passenger seat an hour later.

The roads, now they were hitting the outback proper, tended to be long stretches of straight with very few curves or bends so she figured she was safe to take the passenger seat again.

‘Mt Isa,’ Kent said as he pulled out of the hotel car park. ‘It’s about thirteen hours. That’ll leave only a nine-ish-hour drive tomorrow to Borroloola.’

Sadie nodded. ‘I’ll give Leo a ring from the hotel tonight and let him know to expect us.’

Kent quirked an eyebrow. ‘Leo?’

Sadie mentally chastised herself for the slip. But she smiled at Kent calmly and said, ‘Mr Pinto.’

Kent wasn’t buying it. ‘Leo’s very...familiar,’ he pushed. ‘I hear he’s only Leo to his friends.’

Sadie looked out of the window as they left the last of Cunnamulla behind. ‘Is he?’

Kent considered her deliberate evasion, intrigued despite himself. Which was just as well. Seeing that thong last night had tripped some kind of switch in his head. And he didn’t like where it was taking him. Maybe the Pinto/Bliss conundrum would give him something else to think about other than Sadie oozing curves and sex all over the passenger seat.

‘Thirteen hours is a long time to stay silent, Sadie Bliss. I bet you can’t even manage two.’

Sadie looked back at him, ignoring his deliberate baiting. ‘Why do you say my name like that?’ she diverted.

‘What? Sadie Bliss?’

She listened as he said it again, rolling it around his tongue like a particularly delicious morsel. She imagined what that tongue could do to certain parts of her anatomy and muscles deep in her belly went into free fall.

He shrugged. ‘Sensational byline. Very rockstar. Is it real?’

Sadie rolled her eyes at the familiarity of the question. ‘Yes. Just like my boobs and my lips it’s one hundred per cent real.’

Kent flicked a glance at her. She was glaring at him with exasperation. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said because, no matter what, there wasn’t one iota of that conversation he was going anywhere near.

Sadie deliberately ticked down the minutes until two hours were up before turning to Kent and yanking on his ear bud.

‘Let’s make a deal,’ she said.

Kent raised an eyebrow. ‘Bet that was the longest two hours of your life.’

‘Nope. Two minutes in a bathroom with a mutant spider was much longer.’

‘Okay, so let’s see if we can go another two, shall we?’ he suggested as he located his swinging ear bud.

Sadie shook her head. ‘We’re not going to sit here all day and not talk to each other again.’

Kent flicked a glance at her, then back at the road. ‘We’re not?’

Sadie shook her head. ‘It’s ridiculous.’

Kent shrugged. ‘It was working for me.’

She folded her arms. ‘Have I mentioned how very annoying I can be when I set my mind to it?’

Kent didn’t doubt it. He remembered how she’d harped on about the spider last night until he’d hunted the poor thing from the room. ‘You mean you haven’t set it already?’

She ignored him. ‘We’ll just agree on a subject and stick to the boundaries of it.’

He eyed her warily. ‘Like what?’

She shrugged. ‘How about starting at the beginning? Our childhoods?’

Kent considered it for a moment. It was a safe topic. No skeletons to hide. It could be a good trade for some peace and quiet. He reached for a packet of potato chips he had left over from yesterday. ‘Okay,’ he agreed, opening them as he drove along. ‘But then I get silence for the rest of the day.’

Sadie shook her head, ignoring the aroma of carbohydrates, leaning forward to grab the carrot sticks she’d chopped earlier. ‘For another two hours,’ she bargained.

Kent tapped his fingers on the wheel. ‘Mid-afternoon.’

‘Lunchtime,’ she returned without even taking a breath.

‘After lunch,’ he clarified.

Sadie considered it for a moment. It was better than nothing. She nodded at him and then launched straight into it. ‘So, what’s the Kent Nelson story?’

Kent kept his eyes trained on the road as he munched on chips. ‘Not a lot to tell.’

She laughed at that and Kent blinked as he realised he hadn’t heard it before. Her laughter was deep and throaty and he found himself utterly intrigued. It wasn’t tittery or tinkly or musical like so many of the women he knew. It was full roar, like the rest of her. So few people, especially the places he’d been, laughed with every fibre of their being.

But Sadie Bliss did.

It was strangely soothing in the cocoon of the cab.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Of course not. World renowned, multi-award-winning photojournalist who’s been in every war zone on the planet in the last decade. But nothing here to see, folks, move along?’

‘Okay, how about not a lot I want to talk about?’

Sadie regarded him for a moment. His jaw was clenched just beneath his cheekbone, his brow was scrunched. ‘We made a deal,’ she reminded him.

‘Oh, well, in that case...’

She didn’t miss the sarcasm in his arid tone but she wasn’t going to be put off by it either. ‘Tell me about your parents. I’d appreciate a tale of divorce and woe if you have one?’

Kent glanced at her to gauge her sincerity. She seemed fairly matter-of-fact. ‘’Fraid not. Two parents, both still together and very much in love. An older sister. Standard Australian suburban upbringing.’

Sadie liked the sound of that. ‘They must be proud of you,’ she murmured.

He shrugged. ‘Worried mostly.’

The minute he’d taken off for the Middle East over a decade ago his family had worried. He didn’t know how many times his mother had called the foreign affairs department if he missed a scheduled call in, but he was pretty sure she had a direct line at one stage.

And then, since the accident, they’d been even more concerned.

‘I suppose you were an angelic child,’ Sadie mused. ‘Straight As. House captain. School newspaper. Valedictorian.’

Kent burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. She was so far wide of the target she was practically off the page. ‘No. I think my mother once described me to one of my many school principals, in my presence, as a horrible little shit.’

Sadie blinked. At the admission and his laughter. It was just as delicious as last night. Low and easy, it transformed the spare planes of his face into a pallet of lines and creases. It softened his mouth and twinkled in his eyes. ‘And were you?’

He glanced at her. ‘Guilty as charged.’

Sadie wasn’t quite sure what to say. He certainly didn’t look contrite. He’d just described an idyllic childhood—one she would have killed for. What on earth had motivated him to behave in such a way that his own mother would disparage him?

‘Because they didn’t understand you and you were trying to prove something or some other lame excuse that horrible little boys make to justify their behaviour?’ she asked sweetly.

Kent laughed again but it was more brittle. ‘No. I guess I just always craved adventure. Wanted to know what was beyond the end of my street. Outside my town. Over the sea. On the other side of the world. I’m afraid I became a bit of a hell raiser as I chafed against the bonds of my perfectly nice, domesticated, suburban life.’

Somehow Sadie could imagine that. Especially with the whole buzz cut and bristles he had going on. It seemed more in line with the whole he-man thing than the safe middle-class life he’d just described.

‘So you what? Broke some rules, got caught shoplifting, maybe smoking behind the bike sheds? Some trouble with the cops?’ She snuck a look at him. ‘Caught a venereal disease?’

Kent almost choked at her suggestions. ‘Hell, no,’ he spluttered.

‘No to the venereal disease?’ she asked innocently.

He pierced her with a quelling look. ‘No to any of them.’

‘Well, what then?’ she demanded.

Kent looked back to the road as Sadie’s mouth pouted the question at him. ‘I wagged school. Constantly. Spent my time at the arcade or swimming at the local creek. I did crazy things like jumping off buildings and sticking my hand into an ants’ nest and climbing to the top of an electricity pylon.’

Sadie blinked. ‘Why would you do those things?’

Kent looked at her. ‘Because someone dared me to.’

‘Oh.’

She’d never really understood boys. She hadn’t had a brother—or not one that she’d known as she was growing up anyway. And her father had always seemed a bit of a mystery to her. The same went for the men she’d dated. Even the ones she’d slept with. She’d understood them as sexual beings but the rest was a mystery.

Even Leo, probably the least he-man guy she’d ever known, had this stubborn male pride about him.

Ego, she supposed some psychologists would call it.

‘They sound kind of dangerous.’

Kent nodded, his eyes fixed on the road. ‘I always had something in plaster. My poor mother became an expert at taking out stitches. A couple of times she even threatened to put them in herself, with no local anaesthetic.’

‘Maybe she should have?’ Sadie suggested.

He chuckled. ‘I do believe my father proposed it on several occasions.’

‘So...rattling around in war zones? That took care of the adventure cravings?’ she asked. She was pushing it but it was a natural segue and he finally seemed conducive to being pushed.

‘Yes.’ Kent sobered a little as he realised he’d answered a question that had strayed off topic.

‘Are you going back?’ she asked.

There was a beat where he looked as if he was going to answer her and Sadie held her breath. Then he reached into his chip packet, pulled one out and tossed it into his mouth.

He glanced at her. ‘How do you know Leo?’

Sadie gave him a grudging smile. He’d retreated back behind his line. And she had absolutely no intention of coming out from behind hers.

They were back to the beginning again.

An hour later Kent pulled the vehicle into a petrol station to stock up on more calorie-laden essentials. They’d passed that time in silence again, his MP3 player firmly plugged into his ear canals.

He hadn’t asked her any questions about her childhood and Sadie felt a little miffed.

Surely he was a little interested in her childhood?

‘I bought extra,’ Kent announced as he dumped a plastic bag between them.

She was wearing pretty much the same type of outfit as yesterday—cut-offs and a loose polo shirt. He wasn’t quite sure what she was trying to achieve in denying her curves the artistic outlet they deserved but he’d hate to see them starved into oblivion.

Sadie shot him a sweet smile through gritted teeth as the vehicle got back onto the highway. ‘Imagine my surprise,’ she said as she bit into a carrot stick with a loud crunch.

Of course the crunch of breaking wafer biscuit as he bit into a chocolate bar was far more satisfying. Especially followed by a waft of something sweet.

Chocolate?

Sugar...

A smear of caramel clung to that beautiful full lower lip and Sadie turned away from the decadent scene. Kent Nelson eating a chocolate bar should come with an obscenity warning!

She munched on a handful of carrots sticks and ignored him for a while. They staved off the grumbles but were hardly satisfying. Kent licking his lips in her peripheral vision did not help.

‘So, you want to hear my story now?’ she asked.

Kent didn’t look at her as he shook his head. ‘Not really.’

Sadie blinked at his rejection. The implication that she wasn’t remotely interesting stung. And besides, she needed to keep him talking, not least of all because the silence was driving her crazy. ‘But you told me yours.’

He shrugged. ‘I like hearing mine.’

Narcissist. ‘It’s only polite to listen to the other person’s story, you know? It’s called conversation.’

Kent eyeballed her. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any way you’re letting this drop, is there?’

Sadie gave her head a firm shake. ‘Nope.’

He took a deep breath. Fine. ‘So tell me, how was it growing up? Blissful?’

Sadie ignored the wisecrack. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t heard it before. She looked out of her window at the dry yellow-green scenery flashing by. ‘Not so much, as it turned out. My dad up and left when I was twelve and got himself a new family. With his secretary. Spreading the bliss...as you do.’

Kent whistled. ‘Ouch.’

Sadie nodded. Ouch all right. She still remembered the day he’d left. Coming home from school to her mother crying. Trying to comprehend what had happened. That her father had been so unhappy he’d left her. Just walked away. The years of trying to hold onto him, trying to make him love her all for nothing.

‘Do you have a relationship with him?’

‘Of sorts,’ she murmured. ‘I have two half-brothers. Twins. I see them, ergo I see him.’

Kent thought about how close he was with his own father. ‘That seems kind of...distant.’

‘Well...I never really quite measured up. He was a bit of a jock who’d wanted a boy. Someone he could take to the footy and the cricket. And—’ she lifted a shoulder ‘—he got me. Who liked to read. And draw. And daydream. I’m afraid I was a bit of a disappointment. I spent a lot of years trying to be who he wanted me to be but I never quite got there and then the twins came along and...’

Kent nodded. ‘He had someone to take to the footy.’

Bingo. ‘Yes.’

Not even the engine of the Land Rover, loud by modern standards, could drown out the wistful note in Sadie’s voice. ‘And your mother?’

‘Mum’s great. She’s been a rock. Through everything. She could have become bitter, but she wasn’t. She just got a part-time job and supported me in everything I wanted to do. When I went to art college she took on a second job to pay my tuition.’

Kent looked at her. ‘Art college?’

Sadie nodded as she transferred her attention back to the blur of the outback. ‘I wanted to be an artist for a while.’

She shook her head even as she said it. What had she been thinking?

Kent flicked his gaze to the road, then back to her. ‘What medium?’

Sadie ironed the flat of her palms down the fabric of her fake cammo cut-offs. ‘Painting.’

‘What happened?’

She twined a finger into her hair. I met Leo. ‘I wasn’t really that talented.’ She shrugged. ‘I dropped out.’

Became someone else’s muse instead.

Kent frowned at her nonchalance. There was a hell of a lot more to that story!

None of which he wanted to know.

‘So you became a journo? A bit different from painting, surely?’

‘Not really. I paint my pictures with words now. I like it. I like the facts of it, the clearly defined boundaries. Art is all about interpretation. You must know that,’ she said dismissively, looking up at him. ‘Reporting deals in definites, in absolutes. I like the structure.’

She did. She really did.

Art for her had been a double-edged sword. So tied in with her emotions, her well-being, it had been hard to separate out. It had felt like possession.

Which was, as Leo had pointed out, insane when her talent didn’t justify it.

It had certainly destroyed her relationship with him.

‘Don’t you miss the creativity?’

Sadie shook her head. ‘Words are creative,’ she countered.

Kent shot her a come-on-now look. ‘You know what I mean.’ He’d thought for a long time he never wanted to get behind a camera again, but the urge had returned with gusto.

Sadie sighed, fixing her gaze on distant hills. ‘Painting took over my life. Or rather striving to be good enough took over my life.’ Leo had been a hard taskmaster when she’d gone to live with him and trying to get it right had been impossible. ‘I’m afraid if I took it up again I’d be back in that place. I don’t think I can have one without the other.’

‘Well, that sounds intense,’ he murmured.

‘Trust me—’ she grimaced ‘—it was.’

Kent’s fingers tightened around the wheel. ‘Did you paint nudes?’ he asked, wondering suddenly if that was where the Pinto puzzle pieces fitted.

Sadie pulled her gaze off the horizon, not that far gone that she didn’t recognise he’d moved her into dangerous territory.

‘Where should we stop for lunch, do you think?’ she asked, pulling the map out of the glovebox.

They stopped for lunch at a truck stop near Blackall. Sadie ate a ham and salad roll but discarded the bun. Kent watched as she leaned forward slightly when his hamburger with beetroot and a fried egg arrived as if she was trying to absorb its mouth-watering aroma. He was also aware of her gaze as he brought it to his mouth and chomped into the juicy delight.

When the waitress delivered his lamington and large caramel thick shake to the table he thought he almost heard her whimper before she stood abruptly.

‘I’ll wait for you by the car,’ she said.

Kent watched her go. Her wavy hair swung between her shoulder blades, her shirt hung loose around her waist and bottom, completely concealing everything down to the backs of her thighs. But every time she moved those curves moved with her and there wasn’t one trucker in the joint that didn’t watch her sway out of the door.

He continued to watch her through the glass sliding doors as she walked out into the heat of the midday sun and strolled towards the vehicle. She looked up at a massive road train semi-trailer thundering past. The guy driving was hanging out his window, leering and yelling something at Sadie.

Kent wasn’t an expert lip-reader but he did pretty well with body language so he figured that when Sadie flipped the bird, the trucker had probably suggested she flash him a certain part of her anatomy.

He sucked the last of the thick icy shake up his straw and watched his fellow diners, who were looking wistfully at Sadie no doubt wishing that she’d complied with the lewd request.

The woman was a walking, talking hourglass. Why was she so hell-bent on straitjacketing her assets? Why did she want to starve them into submission?

Kent stood, throwing a tip on the table.

It was none of his bloody business.

Halfway between Barcaldine and Longreach they blew a tyre. Sadie was in a deep sleep when Kent’s curse woke her.

‘What’s up?’ she asked as he pulled off onto the side of the highway.

‘Got a flat.’ He turned off the engine. ‘Sit tight. I’ll have it fixed in a jiffy.’

Sadie blinked as lingering sleepiness tugged at her eyelids. Broken sleep made her irritable and his he-man condescension grated. ‘What makes you think I can’t have it done in a jiffy?’ she grouched as he opened his door. ‘I am perfectly capable of changing a tyre, you know?’

Kent raised his hands in surrender. ‘You want to do it? Knock yourself out. I’m all for women’s lib.’

If she wanted to get hot and dirty he wasn’t going to stop her. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to undo the wheel nuts but it might be fun watching her try.

Sadie jumped down to the ground and looked around. The scenery hadn’t changed much for hours. Flat, dry, brittle pastures with the slightest tinge of green. And lots of sheep. It was quiet out here apart from the occasional rattle of a passing car.

‘Where are we?’ she asked when she joined him to look at the shredded back passenger tyre.

‘’Bout half an hour out of Longreach,’ he said, kicking the flat in disgust. He’d put four new tyres on the vehicle before coming away. ‘We’ll get the tyre repaired there.’

He walked to the back and opened the doors. Sadie helped him move their gear onto the ground so he could access the spare tyre.

‘How long will that take?’ Making this trip any longer wasn’t particularly thrilling.

‘Hopefully they’ll be able to do it for us straight away. Maybe a delay of an hour?’ He located the wheel brace and handed it to her. ‘Why don’t you get started while I grab the spare?’

Sadie saw the challenge in his eyes and gave him a triumphant smile. A man who’d always wanted a son had been a useful person to have around when she was learning to drive—Sadie had changed many a tyre, thanks to her father.

She approached the job with a spring in her step. It would be good to teach he-man that she was a little more than a neurotic, food-obsessed girly.

And it was a perfect plan until she hit the first hurdle. None of the wheel nuts would budge. When Kent brought the spare around she was cursing and muttering under her breath, practically standing on the brace trying to shift one of the stubborn nuts.

‘Would you like a hand?’ he asked innocently.

She glared at him. ‘Why on earth are these on so tight? You’d need to be Popeye on steroids to get them undone.’

He grinned. ‘They tighten the nuts with a machine.’

‘Well, that seems kind of stupid, doesn’t it, if people can’t get them off?’

He nodded, trying to be serious. ‘Of course, maybe if you’d eaten a burger for lunch you might be feeling stronger.’

‘I would have to have eaten an entire side of beef to be strong enough to take these suckers off.’ She thrust the brace at him in disgust. ‘Looks like it’s a job for he-man.’

Kent suppressed the urge to cough at her forceful handing over of the tool. ‘Step aside.’

Sadie watched, her pride soothed as Kent had to use significant grunt to shift the nuts. Still, he made pretty short work of the tyre change and was cleaning off greasy hands in less than fifteen minutes.

He had sweat and grease on his forehead and the testosterone cloud emanating from him was making her dizzy. She opened the back passenger door and handed him a bottle of cold water from the supply in the camp-fridge.

‘Thanks,’ Kent said, twisting the lid and guzzling half in one swallow before pouring some over his head.

Sadie’s gaze followed rivulets of water as they trekked over the contours of his face, his mouth and down the tanned column of his neck.

She reached in and grabbed one for herself.

A breeze lifted her hair as she slaked her thirst and put out a few fires south of her throat. Lusting after Kent was just plain counterproductive. She had a job to do here and it didn’t have anything to do with her sexy photographer.

She didn’t need another complication.

Leo was complicated enough.

She lounged back against the vehicle, ignoring Kent, who was doing the same. She looked out over the outback vista instead. It seemed flat all the way to the horizon, interrupted only by the odd clump of trees and the occasional fence. The only population appeared to be sheep and the odd passing car.

There was something soothing about the isolation.

In the distance she saw the beginning of something that looked like a brown dust cloud barrelling along close to the ground and parallel with the road. ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

Kent squinted to where she was pointing. It was too far away to see properly but, given that it was travelling at a rate of knots, it wouldn’t be long before it was passing by. ‘Not sure,’ he said, reaching into the back passenger foot well and removing his camera bag.

He pulled out his camera, clicked on the zoom lens and looked through it. He smiled as the cloud took form and shape.

‘Emus,’ he announced.

Sadie stared as the cloud came closer and she could just make out individual figures. ‘So it is,’ she murmured. ‘Wow, look at them go!’

A flock of about a dozen of the large, flightless birds was running helter-skelter, their powerful legs eating up the paddock, their feet kicking up dirt and dust, their soft feathers bouncing with each foot fall. As they got closer still Sadie counted ten of them.

Even with them way out in the paddock when they passed by, they were a magnificent sight. ‘Where are they going?’ she mused out loud.

‘Who knows?’ Kent shrugged as he snapped off a series of pictures. ‘But they’re in a hurry.’

They’d no sooner drawn nearer then they were past. ‘That was amazing,’ Sadie said, watching the cloud get smaller and smaller. ‘I’ve never seen emus in the wild.’

He tisked. ‘City chick,’ he muttered as he continued to click away.

Sadie watched him as he peered through the lens—focused, centred. It reminded her of the picture she’d seen of him in New York, where the camera had seemed an extension of him. He stood, his whole body engaged in the process, as if he’d been born with a camera.

‘When did you know you wanted to take pictures for a living?’

Kent ignored her, snapping until the birds were no longer distinguishable. When he pulled the camera away from his face he looked down at Sadie. His first instinct was to shut her down, as he had been doing, but the camera felt good in his hand, the pictures he’d just taken felt right and he remembered the first time so vividly.

‘I was sixteen. My grandfather took me on a road trip to the Red Centre during the school holidays. His camera was ancient but it took amazing images.’

Sadie thought how nice it would have been to have had a grandparent in her life. ‘That was nice of him,’ she mused.

Kent snorted. ‘I think my mother was at the end of her tether and Grandad feared there would be bloodshed. I think he was just trying to save his daughter’s sanity.’

He smiled, remembering that momentous trip. How it had changed his life.

He put the camera to his face again and scanned the broad canvas before him. ‘There was something about the light out there,’ he said. ‘The contrasting colours. I was hooked.’

Sadie watched him peering through his lens. ‘I bet your mother was relieved,’ she murmured.

Kent gave a short sharp laugh as he lowered the camera. ‘Hell, yeah. She signed me up for a photography course as soon as I got back.’

Sadie sucked in a breath at the smile that transformed the harsh planes of his face. He really ought to do it more often. ‘And you never gave her a spot of bother again?’ she predicted.

He nodded. He had knuckled down. Once he’d found his calling he’d put his all into achieving his goal. ‘Essentially,’ he agreed as he returned his camera to its bag in the back of the car. ‘The war zone thing kind of freaked her out.’

Sadie nodded. ‘Mums worry. That’s their job, I guess.’

Her mother had worried about her too. About how she’d tried so hard to be the boy her father wanted. Tried even harder to be the woman Leo wanted. She’d been especially concerned at Sadie’s obsession with her figure.

Kent looked down at the pensive look on her face. She seemed to have gone somewhere far away, a little frown knitting her brows together, her teeth torturing that perfect bottom lip.

‘Come on,’ he said, stepping back from her. And her mouth. ‘We better get this show on the road if we want to get to Mt Isa before this day is over.’

They got to Mt Isa at eleven that night after a couple of stops for photos. They’d passed the hours with minimal conversation despite Sadie’s best efforts.

‘How are you feeling?’ Kent asked as he pulled into a petrol station. ‘Tired?’

Sadie shook her head. Strangely she wasn’t. Driving through the eerily flat landscape on a cloudless, practically moonless night had been weirdly energising. As if she were in a spaceship, floating through the cosmos.

‘You want to see if we can make the Northern Territory border? It’s another couple of hours but it’ll cut the trip down tomorrow. We can pull off to the side of the road and catch a few hours’ kip before moving on.’

Sadie regarded him for a minute. ‘Pull over? And where do we sleep?’

‘I’ll take my swag up to the roof of the vehicle and sleep under the stars. You can doss down on the back seat if you like.’

She pursed her lips. ‘Camping, huh?’

Kent shot her a derisive look. ‘I’d hardly call it that. But it’s something you should try at least once in your life.’

Sadie looked at him. At his mouth.

Her, him and a billion stars.

And his mouth.

‘Okay.’