call that freedom, I call that terror.’
‘How will you know until you try it?’
‘I’m not interested in trying it.’
He totally failed at masking his disappointment. ‘Then you can tail me in the bus. We’ll convoy. It’ll still be fun.’
Famous last words. Something told her the fun would run out, for him, round about the time she pulled into her third rest stop for the day, to pin up posters.
‘There’s also a good caravan park out there, according to the travel guides. You can watch a west coast sunset.’
‘I’ve seen plenty of sunsets.’
‘Not with me,’ he said on a sexy grin.
Something about his intensity really wiggled down under her skin. Tantalising and zingy. ‘Why are you so eager for me to do this?’
Grey eyes grew earnest. ‘Because you’re missing everything. The entire country. The moments of joy that give life its colour.’
‘You should really moonlight in greeting-card messages.’
‘Come on, Eve. You have to go there, anyway, it’s just a few hours of detour.’
‘And what if Trav comes through in those few hours?’ It sounded ridiculous but it was the fear she lived with every moment of every day.
‘Then he’ll see one of dozens of posters and know you’re looking for him.’
The simple truth of that ached. Every decision she made ached. Each one could bring her closer to her brother or push her further away. It made decision-making pure agony. But this one came with a whole bundle of extra considerations. Marshall-shaped considerations. And the thought of sitting and watching a sunset with him even managed to alleviate some of that ache.
A surprising amount.
She sighed. ‘What time?’
‘How long are you set up here for?’
‘I have permission to be on the waterfront until noon.’
‘Five past noon, then?’
So eager. Did he truly think she was that parched for some life experience? It galled her to give him all the points. ‘Ten past.’
His smile transformed his face, the way it always did.
‘Done.’
‘And we’re sleeping separately. You know...just for the record.’
‘Hey, I’m just buying you a sunset, lady.’ His shrug was adorable. And totally disarming.
‘Now go, Weatherman—you’re scaring off my leads with all that leather.’
Her lips said ‘go’ but her heart said stay. Whispered it, really. But she’d become proficient in drowning out the fancies of her heart. And its fears. Neither were particularly productive in keeping her on track in finding Travis. A nice neutral...nothing...was the best way to proceed.
Emotionally blank, psychologically focused.
Which wasn’t to say that Marshall Sullivan couldn’t be a useful distraction from all the voices in her head and heart.
And a pleasant one.
And a short one.
* * *
They drove the two hundred kilometres east in a weird kind of convoy. Eve chugging along in her ancient bus and him, unable to stand the slow pace, roaring off ahead and pulling over at the turn-off to every conceivable human touch point until she caught up, whacked up a poster and headed out again. Rest stops, roadhouses, campgrounds, lookouts. Whizzing by at one hundred kilometres an hour and only stopping longer for places that had people and rubbish bins and queued-up vehicles.
It was a horrible way to see such a beautiful country.
Eventually, they made it to the campground nestled in the shoulder crook of a pristine bay on the far side of Cape Arid National Park, its land arms reaching left and right in a big, hug-like semicircle. A haven for travellers, fishermen and a whole lot of wildlife.
But not today. Today they had the whole place to themselves.
‘So many blues...’ Eve commented, stepping down out of the bus and staring at the expansive bay.
And she wasn’t wrong. Closer to shore, the water was the pale, almost ice-blue of gentle surf. Then the kind of blue you saw on postcards, until, out near the horizon it graduated to a deep, gorgeous blue before slamming into the endless rich blue of the Australian sky. And, down to their left, a cluster of weathered boulders were freckled by a bunch of sea lions sunning themselves.
God...so good for the soul.
‘This is nothing,’ he said. Compared to what she’d missed all along the south coast of Australia. Compared to what she’d driven straight past. ‘If you’d just chuck your indicator on from time to time...’
She glanced at him but didn’t say anything, busying stringing out her solar blanket to catch the afternoon light. When she opened the back doors of the bus to fill it with fresh sea air, she paused, looking further out to sea. Out to an island.
‘Is that where we’re going?’
Marshall hauled himself up next to her to follow her gaze. ‘Nope. That’s one of the closer, smaller islands in the archipelago. Middle Island is further out. One of those big shadows looming on the horizon.’
He leaned half across her to point further out and she followed the line of his arm and finger. It brought them as close together as they’d been since he’d dragged her kicking and cursing away from the thugs back in Norseman. And then he knew how much he’d missed her scent.
It eddied around his nostrils now, in defiance of the strong breeze.
Taunting him.
‘How many are there?’
What were they talking about? Right...islands. ‘More than a hundred.’
Eve stood, staring, her gaze flicking over every feature in view. Marshall kept his hand hooked around the bus’s ceiling, keeping her company up there. Keeping close.
‘Trav could be on any of them.’
Not if he also wanted to eat. Or drink. Only two had fresh water.
‘Listen, Eve...’
She turned her eyes back up to his and it put their faces much closer than either of them might have intended.
‘I really am truly sorry I said that about your brother. It was a cheap shot.’ And one that he still didn’t fully understand making. He wasn’t Eve’s keeper. ‘The chances of him being out there are—’
‘Tiny.
