“Cheeky.”
“If it’s true for me, it’s true for you.”
Horses waited for them in the dark rainforest. Bush stone curlews wailed like ghosts. Refreshing drop in temperature, likejumping into the lake. Dreadnought followed Uni back to the barn. Ronnie felt raw in a good way—sensitive and sore.
Spotted catbirds meowed and night cicadas droned.
They had left the barn light on.
She hung up Dreadnought’s leather tack while Nev returned the brooms to the wall. Alongside Nev, Ronnie put away saddles and brushed horses, preoccupied by memories of nights in small towns in hotter, drier parts of Queensland—visions of the Outback, gum trees that looked like these…
They walked the horses into stalls.
“I used to go on walkabout when I was her age,” Ronnie admitted.
Nev was only half listening. “That tracks.” She disappeared into the barn office, emerging holding an Outback hat.
Ronnie recognized the style of the black leather crusher. It looked like the one her mother had worn. She turned it over in her hands, found the small hole. It was the same hat.
“She asked me to give it to you. I forgot.”
The white lie uttered as an afterthought was so obvious that Ronnie understood it was an apology.
She showed Nev the puncture near the band from the time she had hung it from a road sign and used it for target practice to sight in a Tikka Super Lite. “You met my mum. When did you meet her?”
Nev jammed half a flake of hay into the empty haynet on the wall of Uni’s stall. “She tried to visit you in hospital.”
Ronnie shuddered.
“We should have asked if you wanted to see her, but it felt like emotional heavy lifting.”
“Good call.” Conversations with Matilda-Jane always disappointed her. Her mother and Maude were in the same category as Eastern Brown snakes and car accidents. Rainbow’s behavior tonight unsettled her more than she cared to admit.
“What is it?” Nev asked, partially backlit by the barn light. She cast a shadow on the barn floor.
“Rainbow’s making my mistakes.”
“Nah, she’s making her own.” Nev’s face was closed, her feelings guarded. In the fever-dream inside the strangler fig Ronnie had forgotten to kiss her on the mouth. Rectifying that omission now, she leaned down.
Nev’s lips were soft.
It was a closed-mouth kiss until it wasn’t. Ronnie’s shirt chafed her chest. An invisible string drew tight. She hummed.
She felt where Nev’s little belly touched hers through her clothes. Ronnie’s breath slowed. Warm in all the right places, happily exhausted.
Nev barely moved. “I love you.”
Ronnie recognized the wide-eyed look of a bandicoot in headlights, frozen, unwilling to save itself. You feel bad for it and slam on your brakes. She licked her lips, then straightened with a smile. “That’s random, mate, but I love you too.” Words they had said to each other a hundred times before to mean goodnight or goodbye.
She put on the hat.
Nev flushed. She looked angry, but no, that couldn’t be right. Probably embarrassed.
Ronnie tried to set her at ease. “I had fun tonight.” She rolled her shoulders. “Tomorrow’s a leg day.”
Two spots of red appeared on Nev’s cheekbones. “Hat looks good on you.”
Ronnie winked.
