Someone really needed to give her some basic training in conflict resolution. The guy was clearly a xenophobe and drunk. Calling him stupid in front of a crowd full of locals wasn’t the fastest way out of her predicament.
She shoved past him and used a staple gun to pin up another flier.
He’d seen the same poster peppering posts and walls in Madura, Cocklebiddy and Balladonia. Every point along the remote desert highway that could conceivably hold a person. And a sign. Crisp and new against all the bleached, frayed ones from years past.
‘Stop!’
Yeah, that guy wasn’t going to stop. And now the McTanked Twins were also getting in on the act.
Goddammit.
Marshall pushed out into the centre of the circle. He raised his voice the way he used to in office meetings when they became unruly. Calm but intractable. ‘Okay, show’s over, people.’
The crowd turned their attention to him, like a bunch of cattle. So did the three drunks. But they weren’t so intoxicated they didn’t pause at the sight of his beard and tattoos. Just for a moment.
The moment he needed.
‘Howzabout we find somewhere else for those?’ he suggested straight to Little Miss Hostile, neatly relieving her of the pile of posters with one hand and the staple gun with his other. ‘There are probably better locations in town.’
She spun around and glared at him in the heartbeat before she recognised him. ‘Give me those.’
He ignored her and spoke to the crowd. ‘All done, people. Let’s get moving.’
They parted for him as he pushed back through, his hands full of her property. She had little choice but to pursue him.
‘Those are mine!’
‘Let’s have this conversation around the corner,’ he gritted back and down towards her.
But just as they’d cleared the crowd, the big guy couldn’t help himself.
‘Maybe he’s gone missing to get away from you!’ he called.
A shocked gasp covered the sound of small female feet pivoting on the pavement and she marched straight back towards the jeering threesome.
Marshall shoved the papers under his arm and sprinted after her, catching her just before she re-entered the eye of the storm. All three men had lined up in it, ready. Eager. He curled his arms around her and dragged her back, off her feet, and barked just one word in her ear.
‘Don’t!’
She twisted and lurched and swore the whole way but he didn’t loosen his hold until the crowd and the jeering laughter of the drunks were well behind them.
‘Put me down,’ she struggled. ‘Ass!’
‘The only ass around here is the one I just saved.’
‘I’ve dealt with rednecks before.’
‘Yeah, you were doing a bang-up job.’
‘I have every right to put my posters up.’
‘No argument. But you could have just walked away and then come back and done it in ten minutes when the drunks were gone.’
‘But there were thirty people there.’
‘None of whom were making much of an effort to help you.’ In case she hadn’t noticed.
‘I didn’t want their help,’ she spat, spinning back to face him. ‘I wanted their attention.’
What was this—some kind of performance art thing? ‘Come again?’
‘Thirty people would have read my poster, remembered it. The same people that probably would have passed it by without noticing, otherwise.’
‘Are you serious?’
She snatched the papers and staple gun back from him and clutched them to her heaving chest. ‘Perfectly. You think I’m new to this?’
‘I really don’t know what to think. You treated me like a pariah because of a bit of leather and ink, but you were quite happy to face off against the Beer Gut Brothers, back there.’
‘It got attention.’
‘So does armed robbery. Are you telling me the bank is on your to-do list in town?’
She glared at him. ‘You don’t understand.’
And then he was looking at the back of her head again as she turned and marched away from him without so much as a goodbye. Let alone a thankyou.
He cursed under his breath.
‘Enlighten me,’ he said, catching up with her and ignoring the protest of his aching leg.
‘Why should I?’
‘Because I just risked my neck entering that fray to help you and that means you owe me one.’
‘I rescued you out on the highway. I’d say that makes us even.’
Infuriating woman. He slammed on the brakes. ‘Fine. Whatever.’
Her momentum carried her a few metres further but then she spun back. ‘Did you look at the poster?’
‘I’ve been looking at them since the border.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘What’s on it?’
His brows forked. What the hell was on it? ‘Guy’s face. Bunch of words.’ And a particularly big one in red. MISSING. ‘It’s a missing-person poster.’
‘Bingo. And you’ve been looking at them since the border but can’t tell me what he looked like or what his name was or what it was about.’ She took two steps closer. ‘That’s why getting their attention was so valuable.’
Realisation washed through him and he felt like a schmuck for parachuting in and rescuing her like some damsel in distress. ‘Because they’ll remember it. You.’
‘Him!’ But her anger didn’t last long. It seemed to desert her like the adrenaline in both their bodies, leaving her flat and exhausted. ‘Maybe.’
‘What do you do—start a fight in every town you go to?’
‘Whatever it takes.’
Cars went by with stereos thumping.
‘Listen...’ Suddenly, Little Miss Hostile had all new layers. And most of them were laden with sadness. ‘I’m sorry if you had that under control. Where I come from you don’t walk past a woman crying out in the street.’
Actually,
