looking pretty good. With or without swimsuits.
The naked swimmer fit the image of the wild, free spirit he’d been expecting to find. A leopard didn’t change its spots no matter how hard it was working to cover them up. So Lea galloped across the flats with her hair flying, and she liked to swim naked in ancient watering-holes. That fit. That was the woman that might get the district’s back up over animal-rightsissues. That would raise a child defiantly on her own. That would struggle to make friends in the conservative grazing-country. That would become a target. He almost felt sorry for that woman.
If not for the fact that that same woman had also cheated him out of a child.
The pool, when they rumbled out from between thick scrub, was like a blue-green oasis. The Kimberley red rock had eroded to form pastry layers of pure, hardened magma, an ancient staircase down to the glassy emerald sheet that was the undisturbed waterhole surface.
He had nothing like it on Minamurra, despite his station’s size. ‘It’s beautiful. How long have you been coming here?’ he asked.
‘Grandad first brought me when I was about eight. Just before Dad packed us off to boarding school.’ A shadow crossed her face.
What put that there—memories of boarding school, her grandad or her father? And why did he care?
They parked the vehicle and walked the remaining distance down to the water. It felt natural to Reilly to pick up a dozy Molly and save her the walk. Even the surrounding birds were sleeping off the worst of the midday heat, making the constant drone of insects the only sound for miles.
Towards the back of the pool, a granite overhang threw some welcome shade onto the rock shelf and provided protection from the sun blazing in the deep-blue sky. It felt three degrees cooler in the shade, so Reilly dropped their gear and his daughter there.
‘Will you watch Molly? I always walk the perimeter, just to be sure,’ Lea said, setting off around the waterhole. There was a shelf of rock right the way around, stretching back to the scrub that grew in the sandy earth bounding the rock. Nature’s pool-decking. Molly sat completely still on a nearby rock, obviously accustomed to this routine and knowing what her instructions were.
‘Have you ever found anything?’ Reilly asked when she returned.
‘It’s purely precautionary. The only things living in thatwater are marron and they’re much more interested in what settles on the bottom than what’s swimming in the top.’
‘But you still check for crocs?’
She looked at him. ‘With the early onset of the dry season, wouldn’t you?’
She had a point. Giant saltwater crocodiles surfed the high waterways further inland every year, but they got stranded here if the waters receded too early. They crept around between inland pools getting hotter and hungrier and more desperate until the rains returned and opened up their aquatic path back to the coast to feeding grounds.
Finally, she was done. Reilly watched her staring into the blue-green depths for a moment before recognising her delaying tactics. She didn’t want to be the first one to get her clothes off. Her reluctance was oddly sweet. He started to pull off his shirt, then stopped and frowned. He kept himself in good shape, and revealing his body to a woman was normally a cinch, but flashing his flesh to Lea seemed different now. Awkward.
Standing here fretting about it was stranger still. What was going on with him? It was ridiculous to be shy with a woman who knew every inch of him, biblically speaking.
Reilly tossed his hat onto their belongings and reached his arm over his head to yank his T-shirt over it defiantly. Lea turned away but slowly did the same, unbuttoning her everpresent denim shirt and peeling it back to reveal the swimsuit she wore underneath. He tried not to stare.
It was stupid to be disappointed with a one-piece, especially one that she filled out so admirably, but some deep, honest part
The naked swimmer fit the image of the wild, free spirit he’d been expecting to find. A leopard didn’t change its spots no matter how hard it was working to cover them up. So Lea galloped across the flats with her hair flying, and she liked to swim naked in ancient watering-holes. That fit. That was the woman that might get the district’s back up over animal-rightsissues. That would raise a child defiantly on her own. That would struggle to make friends in the conservative grazing-country. That would become a target. He almost felt sorry for that woman.
If not for the fact that that same woman had also cheated him out of a child.
The pool, when they rumbled out from between thick scrub, was like a blue-green oasis. The Kimberley red rock had eroded to form pastry layers of pure, hardened magma, an ancient staircase down to the glassy emerald sheet that was the undisturbed waterhole surface.
He had nothing like it on Minamurra, despite his station’s size. ‘It’s beautiful. How long have you been coming here?’ he asked.
‘Grandad first brought me when I was about eight. Just before Dad packed us off to boarding school.’ A shadow crossed her face.
What put that there—memories of boarding school, her grandad or her father? And why did he care?
They parked the vehicle and walked the remaining distance down to the water. It felt natural to Reilly to pick up a dozy Molly and save her the walk. Even the surrounding birds were sleeping off the worst of the midday heat, making the constant drone of insects the only sound for miles.
Towards the back of the pool, a granite overhang threw some welcome shade onto the rock shelf and provided protection from the sun blazing in the deep-blue sky. It felt three degrees cooler in the shade, so Reilly dropped their gear and his daughter there.
‘Will you watch Molly? I always walk the perimeter, just to be sure,’ Lea said, setting off around the waterhole. There was a shelf of rock right the way around, stretching back to the scrub that grew in the sandy earth bounding the rock. Nature’s pool-decking. Molly sat completely still on a nearby rock, obviously accustomed to this routine and knowing what her instructions were.
‘Have you ever found anything?’ Reilly asked when she returned.
‘It’s purely precautionary. The only things living in thatwater are marron and they’re much more interested in what settles on the bottom than what’s swimming in the top.’
‘But you still check for crocs?’
She looked at him. ‘With the early onset of the dry season, wouldn’t you?’
She had a point. Giant saltwater crocodiles surfed the high waterways further inland every year, but they got stranded here if the waters receded too early. They crept around between inland pools getting hotter and hungrier and more desperate until the rains returned and opened up their aquatic path back to the coast to feeding grounds.
Finally, she was done. Reilly watched her staring into the blue-green depths for a moment before recognising her delaying tactics. She didn’t want to be the first one to get her clothes off. Her reluctance was oddly sweet. He started to pull off his shirt, then stopped and frowned. He kept himself in good shape, and revealing his body to a woman was normally a cinch, but flashing his flesh to Lea seemed different now. Awkward.
Standing here fretting about it was stranger still. What was going on with him? It was ridiculous to be shy with a woman who knew every inch of him, biblically speaking.
Reilly tossed his hat onto their belongings and reached his arm over his head to yank his T-shirt over it defiantly. Lea turned away but slowly did the same, unbuttoning her everpresent denim shirt and peeling it back to reveal the swimsuit she wore underneath. He tried not to stare.
It was stupid to be disappointed with a one-piece, especially one that she filled out so admirably, but some deep, honest part
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