employed me to protect WildSprings and you are WildSprings, Clint. I’m trying to protect you,’ she whispered, conscious of little ears nearby.
‘I don’t need protection, Romy. Not from my brother.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘I do.’ His lips pressed together and he shook his head. ‘For someone who dislikes being judged so much,’ he went on, ‘you do a pretty good job of judging others.’
Fury boiled between them like a natural spring. But just as she opened her mouth to let him have it, Leighton bounced back into the house. He glanced from one to the other and some of the glow dimmed in his cheeks. He looked anxious. ‘Are we still going?’
Romy immediately turned her focus onto her son with a bright smile. ‘Yep, good to go. Which way are we headed?’
Leighton looked to Clint for an answer.
‘I thought I’d take you around to the next gully. Out towards the roosting site,’ he said. ‘Would you like to see where the cockatoos sleep, champ?’
‘Yeah!’ Leighton burst out the door again.
Clint turned back to say something further but Romy locked her gaze somewhere over his shoulder and studied the kitchen wall. Her voice was frigid.
‘Let’s go.’
The route to the roosting site, as the crow flew, was shorter than the track he and Romy had taken by car. Nevertheless, the bushwalk nearly killed Clint.
He was still mission fit—being on four-hour call perpetually was a hard habit to break—so it wasn’t the cross-country trek down the heart of the gully that took so much out of him. It was the silence that grew exhausting, almost unendurable. It was nothing like the crucial silence he maintained while on mission, nor the comfortable one he enjoyed with Leighton—two mates, twenty years between them, hanging out. It was the draining, stressful silence of two people who’d wounded each other too badly to undo. Two dogs starved into fighting who don’t have the heart or the energy to finish each other.
His nerves were still frayed from the days of non-contact. Romy avoiding him was all too similar to the men in his unit steering clear of him after he’d dogged on their lieutenant. In his head he knew it was probably for the best, that there was no future for them, regardless of the killer chemistry they shared. But in his heart…
Walking between them, Leighton kept up a relentless stream of innocent questions about the bush, wildlife, the park. Clint did his best to answer while his mother maintained a stony silence. But as the evening sun dropped closer to the tree line and the mosquitoes moved in, Clint realised the questions were becoming more strategic. Less about bush-craft and more about military field-craft.
How do you move so quietly through the trees?
How can you tell which way a noise is coming from?
What colours are best to wear for camouflage in the forest?
How about the desert?
And every question he asked caused Romy’s spine to ratchet that little bit tighter until her determined strides through the trees looked plain uncomfortable.
He knew what Leighton was doing. He remembered his parents’ flawed relationship, trying to work out what was up with the two most important people in his life. He’d poked and poked at the open wound of their marriage until it bled so he could comprehend it better.
Leighton was just doing some good old-fashioned reconnaissance, eight-year-old style—trying to provoke a reaction so he could study the response. He’d make a great scientist. And a better soldier.
Over his mother’s dead body.
He glanced at Romy’s steely expression.
And very possibly his.
ROMY shifted uncomfortably for the sixteenth time. Her kitchen chairs were certainly not built for long-term occupation. She flexed her aching back and did a couple of quick stretches to give her a moment away from her laptop. The longer she stared, the less meaningful the images became. A jumbled montage of maps and highlighted points. She pushed all the paper maps away, too.
‘Whatcha doing?’ Leighton crash-landed in the chair next to hers, peering over her shoulder.
‘Trying to figure out who hit that kangaroo.’ She’d told her son all about it, hoping to win his interest back over to wildlife appreciation. It hadn’t worked. He was still fixated with Clint and all things military.
‘Why? Isn’t it too late now?’
‘Maybe I can stop them doing it again. A chance to educate someone.’ Much as she’d like to wring their irresponsible neck. She rubbed her knotted shoulder.
Leighton’s sharp eyes missed nothing. ‘Is it hard work?’
She blew out a breath and then smiled at the worry in his eyes. The protectiveness. Every day, more and more a young man. ‘I just feel like I’m missing something. Like it’s…right there…’ She tapped her forehead, then shook it.
‘Do you want to read it out loud?’
She always made Leighton read words he didn’t understand aloud, to help with comprehension. After the tension they’d had between them this week she was just happy to be having a normal conversation with him. Grab it while you can—even if it means putting work off for a while.
She smiled. ‘Can you spare a few minutes?’
He scooted in closer. ‘Sure. It’s better than math homework.’
If she was half the smooth operator she believed she was, she’d find a way to sneak in a mathematical principle or two while she was at it. She stretched out one of the maps. ‘Okay. So this is WildSprings.’ She pointed to the west of the map. ‘This is the admissions area where I work. This is our house…and Clint’s…and over here’s where I’m spending a lot of time.’
‘Is that the fence you keep fixing?’
‘That’s the one.’ She glanced at his eager, interested face. ‘So, knowing that, can you show me where Frog Swamp is?’
He pointed immediately to a point just south of their house. She smiled. ‘And what’s the fastest way from our place to Clint’s?’
Bright eyes turned up to her. ‘On foot or by car?’
She smiled. Oh, clever boy. ‘Foot.’
He stared hard at the map. ‘Is this the gully? The one we walked up to get to the roosting site? Which means Clint’s house is…there?’
Romy glanced at the map, somewhat surprised he’d found it. ‘Well done. Yes, it is.’ Now on with her only semihypothetical problem. ‘And this is where
