Odette, but the weather’s still too unsettled for me to fly—I’m a chicken in the air—and I don’t know what Smiley’s planned. I’ve only just moved back from Perth.’
‘Sure. I’ll ring later in the week.’ Odette stopped and turned back with a new idea. ‘If you’re not keen on flying, you could stay overnight and drive back the next day. In fact, that sounds more fun anyway.’
Sophie felt she was being directed by a small determined whirly wind, like the one that was lifting leaves outside her window and the one inside her chest when she thought of staying anywhere near Odette’s brother. ‘I’ll mention it to Smiley.’ Not.
Odette pulled a gold compact from her bag, flicked open the mirror and touched up her lipstick. Not something Sophie did regularly out here in the bush and the thought made her smile to herself.
Odette snapped shut the compact. ‘What’s your brother’s real name?’
Sophie had to think for a moment. ‘William.’
Odette nodded as if she liked it. ‘I think I’ll call him William.’
‘It’s been a while since anybody has.’ Now where was this going? Nowhere, she hoped. ‘He may not even remember it.’
‘Even more reason to,’ Odette said cryptically.
That afternoon, Levi poured his sister a chilled juice and himself a cold beer before he moved to look over the veranda at the gorge below. Then her words sank in. He turned back to her. ‘You what?’
‘I invited William and Sophie to stay over for a night on the weekend. The midwife and her brother. To have dinner and drive home the next day.’
He’d strangle her. ‘Did I mention we didn’t want to draw attention until I find out if anyone around here hated our father enough to push him into that river?’
Odette crossed her arms and lent them over her large tummy. ‘Hated him more than you?’
Levi shook his head. ‘I didn’t hate him. I didn’t respect him. That’s all.’
He fully intended to sign the ownership he’d unexpectedly inherited back over to his sister, another baffling development his estranged father had left for him, when they’d all expected Odette to benefit by the resort automatically.
Odette rolled her eyes. ‘Because you’ve just found out he’s had another son to another woman. Humph.’ She returned to topic. ‘Besides, they wouldn’t know anything about Father’s accident. Sophie’s only just moved back from Perth and William is—’ she paused and her mouth curved ‘—just William. He hasn’t a mean bone in his body.’
He flung his hand out towards the view. ‘We don’t know that. Your new best friends. You’ve met them, what, once?’
‘You’ve met her too.’ Odette sat forward as he frowned.
He’d done his part. He’d avoided meeting anyone. Not likely. ‘When?’
‘She said she’d met you by the river—’ Odette didn’t quite poke out her tongue but he knew that look ‘—this afternoon.’ A winning point.
The little honey in the car? The last person he needed to be exposed to, as she seemed lodged like an annoying bindii from the grass in his memory bank. ‘Blonde ponytail? Nice, um, features?’
Odette coughed and he couldn’t help the curve of his own lips. He really didn’t have socialising on his agenda on this trip. He needed to go home; he’d already been away past his expectations, and his theatre list would be a mile long.
His sister would be the death of him. He sighed. Too late now. ‘So why can’t we fly them in and out? That way they don’t have to stay.’
Odette shrugged. ‘Sophie doesn’t fancy the chopper.’
Chicken, eh? Good. Though she hadn’t seemed a shrinking violet. ‘Maybe she wouldn’t mind so much if the pilot didn’t look like she was going to break her waters any moment?’
Odette flapped her hand at him. ‘You’re too used to your own way. Let me worry about me.’
CHAPTER TWO
Five days later
‘I DON’T know how you talked me into this.’ Sophie glared at her brother.
Smiley kept his eyes on the road. ‘You’ve been twitchy all week.’
‘And you’ve been moonstruck like a big old cow.’
Smiley turned to look at her briefly but didn’t say anything.
It was disappointing. A bit of a spat might have taken her mind off the nerves that were building ridiculously at the thought of meeting the brooding rich man again. She was even avoiding his name in her thoughts. How ridiculous.
Unable to get a rise out of Smiley she turned to watch the scenery flash by. The overhanging escarpment of the Cockburn ranges in the distance ran along the right side of the vehicle and the stumpy gums and dry grass covered the plains to the left before they soared into more ochre-red cliffs that tinged purple as the sun set.
Sophie knew the darkening gorges hid pockets of tangled rainforest and deep cold pools like the dread she could feel at meeting him again.
But the stands of thick and thin trees made her smile. She’d missed the pot bellies of the grey-trunked boabs the most while she’d been in Perth.
‘Why don’t you like Odette?’ Smiley was stewing. Something in his voice warned her not to be flippant.
‘Who wouldn’t like Odette?’ she said carefully. ‘She seems lovely. I just don’t want you hurt when she flies back to Sydney.’
Smiley frowned at the road ahead and Sophie winced at his displeasure. Now that was something she’d very rarely encountered and she didn’t like it. ‘I’m sorry, Smiley. I have no right to judge your friends. I think Odette’s great. I just can’t see her as an outback girl and I can’t see you in the city. But it’s none of my business.’
‘Thank you.’ His voice was dry and the two words were a statement. Thanking her for agreeing it was none of her business.
Oops. She really had upset her brother and that was something she’d never consciously do. Since her parents had died she’d become used to bossing Smiley around, giving her opinion, and he’d never seemed to mind.
Obviously she’d crossed the line with Odette. She’d just have to button her lip and trust Smiley’s instincts.
It would’ve been easier if she’d sent him to Xanadu on his own though. She had the feeling her trepidation for Smiley was tied up in the trepidation she held for herself with Odette’s mysterious brother.
Smiley turned off the main dirt road onto the red dust of the track through the scrub. They splashed through several watercourses and wound through the ochre-coloured hills until they turned
