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“Where are they suggesting you go instead?”
“Oh, you know, tootle down the coast to some well-known wine region.” She waved a hand impatiently. “But I’ve seen enough vineyards in Italy and France to last a lifetime. I want to see the outback and sleep under the stars and commune with kangaroos.”
“And spiders…”
She cast him a crooked grin. “They areliterallythe only thing I can’t cope with. Honestly. I’ve had a giant boa constrictor wind itself round my body in Thailand once and I wasn’t fazed. Not at all.”
Lucky boa constrictor.
“Henry says he’ll worry himself sick if I go on my own, and Henry’s the one person in the world I wouldn’t want to worry. I’m closer to him than my parents.”
He was trying to frame a reply when she asked, “Do you think it’s a bad idea?” She eyed him earnestly. “Be honest.”
“I can see his angle.”
“Ha, guessed you would.” Her lips curled into a kissable smile.Oh sweet Jesus. He cleared his throat. “It can be pretty harsh conditions out there. People die if they’re not prepared.”
“I’d be in the Shaggin’ Wagon, I’d be prepared.”
“What happens if you get a flat tyre or hit a roo?”
He glanced across to see her chewing on her lower lip, thinking. “I do agree hitting a kangaroo would be horrible. I’ve only had to contend with dodging cats before. Evie squashed a hedgehog once, but we were convinced it was already sick. But, I mean, kangaroos aside, there will be road services, you have the RAC here don’t you?”
“They won’t come 500 kilometres to get you. It’s not like there’s a hilltop village every couple of hours.”
“What! you mean I can’t stop off and buy bread and cheese at the markets and have a glass of vino in a little piazza?”
His lips quirked “You’ll get a Mrs Mac’s pie at the servo.”
“Bollocks to that.” Elbows on knees, she stuffed her chin into her cupped hands and stared out towards the city lights. “I wishsomeonehad a positive take on this.”
“There’s positive. And then there’s realistic.”
A little handful of grass landed on his shirt. “And then there’s boring… and pessimistic…”
“Hey,” he swiped off the grass cuttings, realised he was grinning broadly, “are you calling me boring and pessimistic?”
She laughed. “I don’t know you well enough to call you anything. Are you?”
The thought that she might view him that way was rather unpalatable.
And that’s when the evil monkey in his brain started jumping up and down. Jabbering away, as monkeys tend to when you unleash them. Add a touch too much alcohol and a day of smiling until his teeth were fit to fall out of his skull and it was a recipe for the kind of risk-taking behaviour Oliver never indulged in.
The words surged up his throat. His lips tingled with the effort to swallow them. They bubbled up again, and as they slid onto his tongue and danced around in that deranged monkey way words have when you know you shouldn’t utter them, he managed to slam his mouth shut.
And then she sighed. A small, defeated sound. Her slender shoulders slumped. And it broke a little piece off his brittle heart.
The words hovered for a single moment more, then tumbled free-fall into the darkness.
“I could come with you, if you like.”
* * *
Felicity’s heartbeat a fast rap against her ribs. Had she heard him right? Had he really offered to travel with her to Sydney?
Her mouth slackened momentarily. But when she looked at him and his expression was completely deadpan she was sure she’d somehow conjured up the words herself.
“Are you serious?” she burst out in a rather high-pitched squeak.
