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  He pointed to an old gum, its lower trunk a bright lime green, wizened and wrinkled at the base like a giant elephant’s foot. ‘That’s a marker tree. Wild dogs mark their territory and the constant spray of dog piss turns the exposed root green.’

  He strode back to the ute and let one of his dogs – the male, Tommy – off the back. The mutt ran around and she could see Trav clock that Tommy paid particular attention to the tree, spraying the root with his own piss and then a nearby clump of tussock as well.

  Travis called the dog back onto the ute, locked him up. He returned to Tammy, a wicked little grin playing across his face. ‘Tracking a wild dog without a dog of your own is like going into a whorehouse without a dick, if you’ll pardon my French.’

  He looked so contrite at being impolite, Tammy chuckled. The man was an incredible mix of contradictions. Inside that hard body of muscle, which seemed to repeatedly send erotic thoughts skidding through her mind, a wild caveman clashed with a refined gentleman. Maybe one man was what he really was, the other what he thought he should be.

  ‘Have I offended you?’ His eyes and brow were now crink­ling with concern.

  ‘Hey, I’m a dairy farmer. I think I can handle it.’ She was really laughing now. ‘Obviously you’ve never spent time at Montmorency. A choice swear word or two always helps relieve the stress in the cattle-yards.’

  Travis gave a half-grin in return, his watchful gaze pausing to take in her laughing face as if he’d never seen it properly before. His eyes skimmed over her pert nose, high cheekbones and lightly dimpled chin. The intensity of his stare made her stomach do somersaults, while her brain dived into her pants. That hungry look of his made her feel like she was the most desirable woman in the world.

  Tammy found herself looking down, suddenly self-conscious. ‘What now, Mr Boundary Rider?’ she mumbled to the ground.

  He moved towards the ute. ‘We have something to eat, Ms McCauley. I’m starving.’

  I am too, was her immediate and traitorous thought. Just not for food.

  ‘So, where were you working on the dog fence?’ she asked, a tentative note to her voice. They were both munching on sandwiches; Tammy had just poured two cuppas from a Thermos she’d stashed in the ute. He noticed she didn’t ask anything else, just looked around, giving him time to decide whether he wanted to answer or not.

  He sat and thought about what to say. How much to share? Above their small clearing, where they sat perched on fallen logs, the sun was bright and warm. The swish of a nearby fern told him some little marsupial was abroad. And still she sat there patient and silent. It all felt so intimate he found himself wanting to say something.

  ‘We started out at Broughams Gate in western New South Wales. It was fine while I was out there by myself. I loved it. It’s so isolated being on the edges of the Strzelecki Desert . . .’ Travis paused and took another bite of his sandwich. ‘But then I met Kat, we got married and all she wanted was a baby. She wouldn’t let up, even though I worried that we weren’t ready – anyway, she got her way and Billy was born.’

  He heard Tammy suck in a soft breath, but she stayed quiet.

  ‘Well, Kat didn’t cope so well out on her own. At Broughams there’s only one house, so we moved to Smithville. There are four houses there, so she had a bit more company. I thought she’d be busy with the baby to care for and with a few others around . . .’ His voice trailed off then started again, ‘But that didn’t work either. She just got more and more resentful of being out bush. She was a country girl. I had no idea she wanted to go to the city, though she was saying by then that she always had . . . Anyway. So as a compromise we got a house in Broken Hill for her and Billy, and I tried to make it home every second weekend, even though it was an eight-hour round trip.’ Travis sighed, tossed the dregs of his cuppa into the bush.

  Beside him Tammy waited, wondering what was coming next.

  ‘I got home one weekend . . . It was a Friday night.’

  The lights in Chloride Street were just blinking on as Trav swung his LandCruiser tray into the driveway of the little house crouched on the corner. He got out, swung the canvas kit bag over his shoulder and loped towards the back door. The house was silent.

  The paper lay curled like a snake on the table. A series of small oblong Post-It notes, stuck on the laminate in a snail-shell-like spiral. The trail of paper looked like it was heading out of control, fighting for space among the slashes and chips in the laminate.

  Butter

  Vegemite

  Toothpaste

  Baby formula

  Nappies

  Bread

  Milk

  Trav let out the breath he’d been unconsciously holding. A shopping list written by a bored, artistically minded housewife. That wasn’t so bad.

  ‘Kat?’ he called.

  He moved to the lounge door and yelled again, ‘Kat, I’m home.’

  The house wasn’t big and his deep voice came back at him, rebounding off the high, tongue-in-groove ceilings.

  ‘Katrina?!’

  ‘Whaaa . . . whaaa . . .’ A child. Woken by the sudden disturbance.

  Trav strode into the nursery, decorated in a soft blue. A big old wooden cot was secluded in the corner, a carousel of bright clowns spinning gently in the breeze coming from the idly turning fan overhead.

  In the cot lay a toddler. A screaming toddler.

  ‘Billy, mate. Hey, c’mon little fella. No need for that, little man.’ And he awkwardly picked up the little boy, taking in his red, tearsodden face. The swollen eyes had come from more than a few minutes of crying. ‘Where’s Mum, mate? Hey, c’mon.’

  Not knowing what else to do, he lifted the two-year-old up against his broad, warm chest, patted Billy’s little back. The boy snuggled in, comforted and lulled by the security.

  Now he was really worried. Kat wouldn’t have left the toddler. Sure, she’d been a bit weird lately but that was just because she was still struggling with the adjustment to being a mum.

  ‘Trav?’

  He swung around.

  ‘Travis?’ The voice moved down the passage.

  ‘I’m in here.’

  ‘Oh, thank heavens you’re home.’ The next-door neighbour, Beverley Spencer, looked relieved as she met him at the nursery door. ‘I heard the baby. I’d just come out into the garden and I ignored it to start out with. Then I started thinking I’d seen Katrina heading off down into town a while ago and I realised the crying was coming from here and, well . . .’ Bev’s voice bumped to a halt as she took in Trav’s expression of horror.

  ‘Kat left the child here? By himself? What the –?’

  The phone started ringing in the kitchen.

  ‘Here. Let me take the little man. You go answer the phone.’ Bev grabbed at the toddler, ducking her head so he couldn’t see her face. But Trav had seen a glimpse. Horror, pity, sorrow all blended together.

  ‘Travis Hunter speaking.’

  ‘Trav?’

  ‘Kat! What the fuck –’

  ‘Just stop and listen to me.’

  ‘Kat, you’ve just walked off and left Billy –’

  ‘I can’t do it, Trav. I just can’t do it any more.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can’t be a mother, a wife . . .’ Trav could hear her breaking into sobs.

  ‘Kat! C’mon. Come home. We’ll sort it out,’ he pleaded, wildly searching for something to say to hold her. ‘We’ll get some help, talk to someone. We’ll work it out! Kat.’

  A loudspeaker came over the phone announcing a departure of something to somewhere. Trav couldn’t hear it properly. ‘Where are you, Kat? I’ll come get you, hon. Let me come get you and we’ll talk this –’

  ‘No! No, Travis!’

  Trav was shocked into silence. Kat never screamed, never yelled, not even when Bev accidentally spraye
d glyphosate over her organic vegetable garden.

  ‘I’m going. There’s nothing you can do to stop me. I don’t want you coming after me Trav. I’m not coming back.’

  And Trav could hear her crying. He went to interrupt – to say what? He didn’t know. Anything to stop her from doing this to herself, to him, to Billy. She overrode him, speaking loudly to stop his begging.

  ‘Look after our baby. One day . . . one day tell Billy his mummy loved him . . . But I have to go. I have to leave to save myself, Trav. Can’t you see? I’ve lost me. So many hopes, so many dreams . . . all gone.’

  Trav could feel his legs starting to give way under him. Such a strong man, people said. Such a strong, devoted man who adored his wife so much. A lovely thing to see, especially these days with so much divorce going on. ‘Kat?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Trav. I’m really, really sorry.’ The phone went clunk.

  And she was gone.

  Back in the clearing, Travis felt Tammy take his hand. He looked at the tanned fingers threaded through his in shock. He hadn’t realised he’d kept talking, telling her the whole story. Geez, he’d never done that. Not even with his own mother; he’d preferred to give her the less painful edited version.

  He looked across into a pair of empathetic ­burned-caramel eyes, urging him to go on. What the hell, he’d said this much now. ‘We battled along, Billy and me. I took him out to Smithville, and a girl living there with a bloke helped us for a while. But then they left, Billy turned four and was heading for school. It was just getting too hard. My mother, Diane, she lived in South Australia, offered to take on the boy. She was good to him. Good to us both.’

  ‘It must have been difficult to leave him,’ said Tammy quietly. He could see dismay in her eyes, at the thought of him having to leave his child.

  ‘Yes and no. Yes, because I knew the little bugger deserved better. No, because it’d all become too hard. I’m a bloke. We don’t do the nurturing thing like a woman.’

  He could see she was having trouble with that thought.

  ‘You don’t agree?’

  Tammy shook her head. ‘Nope. You obviously never met my grandparents. My grandmother was not the nurturer in that marriage.’

  ‘She didn’t love you?’ said Trav, curious.

  Tammy considered that for a moment. ‘I wouldn’t say that. She loved me as much as she could.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Tammy smiled. ‘Well, Mae was a very beautiful woman . . .’

  ‘I wouldn’t doubt that,’ interrupted Trav, looking pointedly at her. ‘The gene’s obviously carried through.’

  Tammy blushed, seemed to fumble with her thoughts for a few seconds before going on. ‘She enjoyed being the centre of attention all the time, and I guess Grandpa Tom and I pandered to that.’ Her expression turned rueful. ‘It was just easier to play along rather than rock the boat with Mae.’

  ‘Mae? Not Grandma or Nanna?’

  ‘Oh, heck no!’ Tammy shot him a look of mock horror. ‘That sounds waaay too old. Almost doddery!’

  ‘And Mae didn’t do old and doddery?’

  ‘Nope. Well-groomed perfection was my grandmother. Any messy nurturing stuff like hugs and kisses I had to get from my grandfather. When I was growing up I always wished she could let life be about someone other than herself just for one day. But then when you’re a teenager life is all about yourself too.’ She stopped, soft chuckles rumbling through her chest.

  Trav wondered if she knew how laughter lit up her entire face. It made her look more beautiful than ever.

  She continued, ‘We were both so selfish, it must’ve been hell on Grandpa.’

  ‘He was good?’

  Tammy’s eyes shone with love. ‘He was awesome, and my escape. He taught me everything I know about farming and it didn’t matter to him that I was a girl. He was also the one Mae and I ran to when we couldn’t get on with each other. Mind you, technically Mae always won those bouts but Grandpa Tom had this way about him that made us both feel we’d won in the end.’

  ‘How’d he do that?’

  Tammy took a few moments to think about it. ‘I think he just took all the blame onto himself.’ Her face turned wistful. ‘I miss them both terribly.’

  ‘I’ll bet you do,’ said Travis, wondering whether he could ask about her mum but at the same time cursing himself inwardly for his interest. Wasn’t he supposed to be staying away? ‘My mother had a stroke but at least she’s still here.’

  ‘Is that why you came back to Lake Grace? For your mum?’

  Travis got up and started to pack up the Thermos and wrappings from their lunch. ‘Yes. It was the least I could do,’ he said as he threw it all into a toolbox on the back of the ute. ‘She deserved the best I could give her.’ This was all getting a bit too up close and personal. ‘You ready to learn how to set a dog trap?’

  Tammy got up off her log and brushed down her jeans. She’d taken his hint the conversation was over. He’d told her more in the last half hour than he’d shared with anyone since Kat left. He just hoped she couldn’t see through him now. He liked that his gruff exterior hid the fact that he actually cared a lot. That sort of thing just caused entanglements – and trouble.

  ‘Righto, Ms McCauley, it’s time to get serious.’ Travis dragged out a couple of rubber-jawed traps from his ute. Clearing an area right beside the marker tree, he set the first one. Snapping a small but thickish stem from a nearby bracken fern, he scored a nick into the square branch and placed it under the trap plate.

  ‘Why’d you do that?’ asked Tammy, fascinated.

  Trav was relieved they were back on the track. He felt much more comfortable talking about practical things than touchy-feely stuff. ‘To stop any marsupials or birds from setting it off,’ he said, as he carefully placed a piece of fly wire over the open jaw and sieved some dirt lightly on top. He grabbed an old board and put it on the trap to protect it.

  ‘Let Tommy off the ute again, will you?’ he called to her.

  She let the dog go. Tommy ran over to Trav and, at his master’s command, pissed over the bark and trap. ‘Beautiful,’ said Travis. He ordered his mutt back onto the ute tray. Next he removed the board and stood back to inspect his handiwork. ‘Hopefully now the wild dog will come back, smell the new dog’s scent and re-mark his territory. Snap. Got you, you bastard.’

  The woman didn’t say anything. He cast her a glance. Any sign of a smile was gone, replaced by an expression that was both grim and haunted at the same time. Travis could feel Tammy’s eyes watching him as he kneeled and spent some time poking sticks and twigs into the ground around the hidden trap, trying to make sure the dog would put its paw on the correct spot.

  It was funny how she could be so quiet. Most females he’d known in the past would feel the need to fill the peace with chatter. Not this woman. She seemed to respect silence. Know that sometimes it was better to say nothing at all. Where did she learn that? From her grandmother or her bastard of an ex-husband? Speaking of which: ‘If this doesn’t work I’ll bring some of my bitch’s piss out here and pour it around the trap. That usually works, especially if the rogue dog is a male.’ Travis grinned inwardly, appreciating the irony even if his company wasn’t privy to his thoughts.

  Tammy stood and contemplated the area. ‘You’d never even know we’ve been here.’

  ‘And that’s just the way I like it,’ said Trav. He turned to the dark-eyed siren beside him and slung her a half-grin. ‘Dogs are a bit like women. The more you think you know about them, the less you do.’

  ‘You speaking from experience there, Hunter?’

  ‘You betcha.’

  Chapter 30

  It was late when they pulled up at the back door of Trav’s house, or shack really. The place looked well worn in – like a comfortable, sloppy jumper the owner loved to bits. It seemed to hunker down on its rocky hil
l, with scrambling wild vines trying to find purchase on the roof and native shrubs shrouding the walls. The vegetation made the place seemed rooted in the soil, one with the bush. Like its current inhabitant, who was on the phone to Joe, checking to see if his son could stay another night.

  Tammy couldn’t help but wish she lived here. No expectations loomed from the building other than taking shelter. There wasn’t a hundred and fifty years of history mocking you in the face like at Montmorency down the bottom of the hill. And in fact, she should be getting back there. Her relief milker would be long gone by now.

  They’d spent most of the rest of the day setting and checking traps and talking with other farmers whose properties abutted the state forest. The landowners wanted the government to do more about the wild dog problem that just seemed to be getting worse. ‘More tucker around. It’s the good seasons,’ they’d said.

  Tammy wished with all her heart this was a good season for her. But it wasn’t. There were too many things around her that were spiralling out of control as fast as a tornado, and this goddamned dog problem just about topped it right off.

  Trav got out of the ute and moved to the back, unloading their lunchboxes, Thermos and coats. Tammy met him coming around her side. She held out a hand. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I appreciate your help.’ To her horror she found tears were welling. She tried to force them back but to no avail. The minute Trav’s warm hand touched hers, she was gone.

  The sobs erupted, rumbling through her body like thunder. What the hell? Couldn’t her emotions have waited until she was alone? She tried to suck it all back in but the disappointment, the despair, the anxiety she was feeling all came tumbling out in defiance of her efforts.