Wild About Harry (Hearts of the Outback Book 5) Page 3

  What did it say about him that after only a single night he could call to mind Bri’s bright smile and that damned tantalising image of her at dinner, but his wife’s face was a little out of focus, a little less secure in his memory?

  Locking last night into his memory vault, he turned into the car park at Vicky’s kindy and considered whether he could juggle his current project for the Mt Isa mine back a day and get stuck into the analysis of his friends’ property.

  Hand in hand, he walked with Vicky through the door and picked up the pen to sign in. With careful planning and judicious explanation, he should be able to—

  Raised voices and chaos registered. His heart rate shot sky high, one hand shot out and muscles bunched in his arm as he pushed Vicky behind him. He scanned the room, the entry then back to an angry mob of parents clustered around Clare Spencer. The noise rose like a squabbling pack of hyenas hungry for a piece of a kill. Clare looked besieged and bothered, a rare occurrence for the usually calm kindy teacher.

  Jim Faulkner spotted him and strolled over. His mate was unconcerned while Harry’s stomach clenched, his body tense. He hated random events. Random meant trouble, even danger. “What’s going on?”

  “Did you pre-order and prepay for your photos on that website?” Jim’s son, Fraser, slipped his hand into his father’s and grinned at Vicky.

  “Yes, that’s what the newsletter asked us to do. Why?”

  “Looks like it’s a scam. There’s no photographer and this lot are out to pin the blame on someone.”

  “That someone being Clare?”

  “Right.”

  “Daddy?” Vicky tugged his hand.

  He looked down into her worried little face, dropped to his knee and placed both hands around her waist. “What is it, Pumpkin?”

  “Where’s the man with the camera?”

  “I’m sorry. It looks like something’s happened and he’s not coming.”

  “Do you think he got caught in the rain like Briony?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Aren’t I getting my photo taken?” One hand touched the braid Briony had created. Tears welled in his daughter’s eyes and her lower lip trembled.

  Vicky’s disappointment hit Harry like a mining pick, sharp, splintering his heart in two. She wasn’t a cry-baby. If anything, her mature-for-her-age self containment usually worried him. And now he was concerned that tears wet her lashes.

  His inconsistency would have been funny if he wasn’t worried she’d been bottling up the loss of her mother in some deep, dark part of her mind. Was this the day the dam broke?

  He sucked in a breath, feeling that helpless, out of control, spinning-head-world-crumbling feeling he’d known once before. If he ever got hold of the scammers who were breaking his world apart, he’d—he’d—.

  “Daddy?”

  “Not today.”

  “But Briony did my hair special.” Without warning, she flung her arms around his neck. Soundless sobs shook her body and she burrowed further into his shoulder.

  Faced with the inconsolable, Harry could do nothing more than hug his daughter—tight.

  ##

  The café was quiet between breakfast and morning tea as Bri pressed the red button and ended the call to her mother then picked up her half-finished coffee.

  Your cousin, Dan lives up there now. Give him a call and ask for a bed.

  Dan the doc as she’d dubbed him when he graduated now flew with the Flying Doctor out of Mt. Isa.

  He is the Flying Doctor, she realised. If only she’d known that yesterday, she could have asked Harry to drop her at Dan’s home.

  Harry?

  The informal version of his name popped naturally into her head, but she wasn’t sure if her attitude towards Harry had shifted, even after watching him with his daughter. Harry, the man, still made Marcel Marceau look positively chatty.

  She opened her satchel, took out a portfolio and spread several enlarged photos across the tabletop. The images were good, and one was more than good. Images of untouched bush were juxtaposed with harsh scarring left by the mine she’d photographed most recently.

  The mine Gramps had worked in.

  The mine that had damaged his health, and would eventually kill him.

  So much for safe practices.

  Her fingers traced the smooth curving line of the surface cut, dipped down the terraced face and stopped on one of the massive trucks labouring up the winding road. Surface mines were meant to be safer for miners, but in spite of spending most of his life above ground, her grandfather had developed black lung disease.

  He’d been a prominent voice for his fellow miners in trying to stop new mining operations in favour of renewable energy. “Especially when you think of all the free sun we could be using, hey, chickadee?”

  Gramps had made it personal. He’d fought the good fight and encouraged her to take up the battle now his health made it too difficult to travel and speak at meetings. As a speaker, there were few who could argue more eloquently.

  But while her battle was Gramps’ battle, her weapon of choice was her camera.

  Targeted photographic evidence of the effects of established mines on local land use would make a powerful visual statement, alongside portraits of miners like Gramps.

  She touched the best photograph in the group; aerial views would complete the perspective, and mines in the north west would complete her overview of the state.

  Harry’s refusal to take her up in his plane was fair and reasonable, but Dan might be more persuadable, especially if she appealed to their family connection.

  She began plotting how to hitch a ride with him. Maybe a special feature on the Flying Doctor’s work would enable her to scope parts of the vast north through her lens. Selling the pictures and a short article to a magazine would make up for the unexpected drain on her finances until her car was repaired.

  Her phone buzzed and she picked it up and checked the screen.

  Unknown caller.

  Flicking the call away, she returned her attention to her immediate problem. Fingers crossed Dan wasn’t flying to some remote location this morning, she looked up her cousin’s number and rang.

  “Dan Middleton.”

  “Dan, it’s me, Bri. How are you?”

  In the background, a husky female voice asked, “Who’s Bri? Should I be jealous, darling?”

  She wondered about that voice, what it meant, what that darling implied, and checked the time on the café clock. Ten o’clock shouldn’t be too early for her farm-born and raised cousin to be up and about.

  “My cousin. Hello, Bri. I’m great. You?”

  “I’m well, but did I catch you at a bad time? You sound like you just woke up. I can call later if—”

  “It’s fine. Got a day off and relaxing. I’m just surprised to hear from you. Mum said you were doing some big trip to remote places and I thought you’d be out of range.”

  “Is Mt Isa considered remote these days?”

  “You’re here? Great, come on over to our house.”

  Our house? Our house.

  That darling suggested her cousin had moved in with someone. Why hadn’t her mother told her Dan was dating?

  “If you’re sure.” Sussing out the situation would be so much easier if she didn’t have to arrive with all her gear and no car, but what choice did she have? “What’s the address?”

  ##

  Harry dropped his phone back on the desk and tossed Bri’s business card on top of it. “So much for reciprocating.”

  He pushed his chair back with a screech of wood on wood and paced to the window. Massaging the back of his neck, he tried to retrieve the line of thought he’d been following before he’d found Bri’s card with a brief thank you note on the kitchen bench.

  Shirt still damp with Vicky’s tears, that card had seemed like a gift, a solution to more than his daughter’s disappointment.

  Somewhere between feeling grateful Bri had left a means to contact her and waiting for her
to answer, a little spark of pleasure flared at the thought of speaking to her again.

  A little spark that declared him traitor to Linda.

  He looked at the card. It lay at an angle on his desk, innocuous, dangerous, like a brown snake waiting for him to make a wrong move. That little piece of card provided a connection he hadn’t looked for, shouldn’t want.

  But he did.

  Something about Briony Middleton has reached through the haze of his grief and woken him to the world. To the fact of other people living and laughing, enjoying life.

  And heaven help him, last night he had felt something other than grief for the first time in months.

  Eighteen months and two days to be precise.

  His gaze fell on the framed photo of Linda and Vicky, the last one he had taken. He picked it up and studied his wife’s features, comparing them with Vicky’s now. Linda had been happy on that holiday.

  He liked to remember her that way, not like—

  He put the framed photo down with a thump and gripped the windowsill, his breaths coming out in ragged gasps. Would he ever overcome that last image of Linda’s face, the agony of her last moments?

  Resting his forehead against the cool glass of the window, he concentrated on recalling the face of his daughter, but it was the despair of a five-year-old that fixed in his mind. Dressed up and with her hair showing the care of a woman’s touch, and the lost promise of kindy photos to capture the treat.

  He picked up Bri’s card and tapped it on the desk. Wanting, and not wanting to make contact.

  What kind of father was he, putting his own fear before his daughter’s happiness?

  It didn’t matter that his body reacted to the woman; it didn’t matter that his mind played tricks on him, remembering Bri’s face while Linda’s was less clear.

  What mattered was making his daughter happy, and that meant securing the services of a photographer for the kindy.

  He picked up his phone and pressed redial.

  “Hello?” Bri’s voice rose above the sound of traffic, a horn beeping, a male voice nearby spitting out an annoyed “Moron.”

  Harry hung his head. Why hadn’t he planned his words, his approach? What was wrong with him today? “Uh, hi, Bri, it’s—Harrison Douglas.”

  There was a moment’s silence, no more than a heartbeat or two. “Harry—Harrison, hi. You found my note then. I wanted to let you know I really appreciated your kindness last night.”

  “You’re welcome. Look, Bri, I was wondering if—that is, I’ve a request—a favour—I’m not sure what it is, but are you free to meet for coffee? Or something?” His free hand made a fist on the windowsill. Good grief, he sounded like an adolescent trying to ask a girl for a date.

  He always prepared everything. Why hadn’t he prepared this?

  “I’m sorry, I can’t right now.”

  His heart took a dive like an eagle falling on prey, swift, fierce, lethal. He needed Bri to make things right for Vicky.

  Tell her what you want, tell her why.

  He dragged in a breath and thought. Not right now wasn’t a no response. Not right now was open to negotiation.

  “Lunch? Afternoon tea? I’m working from home so I’m flexible with times.”

  “In that case, say two-ish for coffee. Tell me where.”

  Relief poured through him. Reciprocation had never been on his mind but Bri’s offer put a solution to Vicky’s unhappiness within his grasp. He thought quickly. “How about I pick you up since you’re without a car?”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  He wrote the address on a sticky note and ended the call. Turning back to his desk, he breathed out a loud whoosh of relief, opened the laptop and got to work on the report for Lizzy and Alex.

  Chapter Five

  As a coffee date the café in his local shopping centre wasn’t an exciting choice, but the coffee was good. Besides, Harry had no idea where else to take Bri. The lunch crowd had long gone and only two other tables were occupied.

  Bri swirled a straw vigorously in her milkshake, setting up a miniature chocolate whirlpool. Her light blue eyes were electric with righteous wrath. “That’s lousy. It makes me angry when these scammers get away with their dirty tricks.”

  He dragged his eyes away from her face and stirred sugar into his long black coffee. “I feel sorry for Clare Spencer, the kindy teacher. She copped a lot of flak this morning, but it isn’t her fault. Apparently several other schools in town have been caught up in the scam. The student photo site looked legit and schools were encouraged by regional officers to get on board with the online booking system.”

  “If I could, I’d take these scammers out and dump them in the middle of the desert, minus internet connection.” She wrapped her lips around the two straws and drew up a mouthful.

  “Sounds fair.” Harry chuckled, and pulled himself up in surprise. The sound was rusty and over almost before it began, but he couldn’t recall the last time an involuntary laugh of any sort had passed his lips. He cleared his throat, took a slug of coffee, and set the mug on the saucer.

  “What I want to ask is—” This time he’d prepared his words, rehearsed them in his head on the drive to Bri’s cousin’s home—was it good or bad luck she hadn’t known last night that her cousin now lived in Mt Isa?—and decided they would do. Good words, clear words, words that said no more than they were meant to, that gave away none of his despair at Vicky’s tears. Except now—with Bri’s brilliant blue gaze focused on him and a smile hovering on her lips—every one of those words fled like birds from a cat.

  “I was going to ask—” He hadn’t been so inept in conversation since he’d been a teenage boy. Maybe not even then.

  Bri’s lips twitched and her smile broke through, putting him out of his misery. “Is this about reciprocating?”

  He grasped at the word like a lifeline, clinging to the idea before he drowned in the blue sea of her eyes. “Yes. Would you consider taking the kindy photos for us?”

  “Hmm.” She fiddled with the straws in her milkshake, pumping them up and down several times like a pair of pistons working overtime, and frowned. “I’d love to help, but I’m not really set up for portraits.”

  But—not—

  These were not the words he wanted to hear. They were the wrong words, words that negated his need to fix the problem and make Vicky smile again.

  “I thought you mentioned the changing face of Oz?” He distinctly remembered that title. He recalled that part of their conversation clearly; but not anything after he’d set the toasted sandwich in front of her. After that, his focus had changed to watching, not listening.

  Selective hearing Linda had called it.

  The reminder drew a frown. Feeling that tightening pinch around the bridge of his nose recalled him to what mattered most here.

  Vicky.

  “Do you mean you don’t have the right sort of camera?”

  “I don’t have any of those backdrops or—you’ve seen those silver flash umbrellas they use? I don’t have any of that gear.”

  “Ah, I see.” His mind ticked over with ways to address the lack of equipment. He was no expert, but he hadn’t earned his double degree without learning how to improvise a thing or two. “Maybe I can rig something.”

  “Look, there might be a way around it. Can you show me the kindy and introduce me to the teacher? If I see the centre, it might spark a solution.”

  He glanced at his watch. “It’s nearly pick up time. Sure, come on.”

  ##

  “Boy, it’s crazy around here when the bell goes, isn’t it.” Bri watched the big SUVs manoeuvring in the car park, like some weird vehicular ballet as Harry drove to the far end.

  A champagne-coloured behemoth glided forward, made a half-turn, and reverse angle parked with a cha-cha back and forward movement as the driver squeezed the vehicle into a Mini-sized space next to the gate. The driver emerged wearing high-end gym gear, unsubtle red lipstick, and hair pulled up into a smooth, bouncy pony
tail that hadn’t seen action more onerous than climbing in and out of the driver’s seat.

  Harry parked at the end furthest from the gate and switched off the engine. “Usually Felicity collects Vicky.”

  “But you gave her the day off, right?”

  “So I could catch up on work.” His frown told her how well that had gone. He led the way down the path and into the main kindergarten building.

  Excited chatter rose around Bri as children showed parents little treasures gathered or made in the day, and parents scrambled to sign out and be on their way.

  She looked around the crowded space. How did parents ever find their kids in the melee? “Where’s Vicky?”

  Harry looked in the book room, checked the bag area and shook his head. “I don’t know. She was upset after we got here this morning. I’ll find her teacher and ask.”

  “Upset?” Bri’s gaze wandered to the fort beneath the shade canopy. Whenever she’d been sad as a child, her reaction had been to climb into the low branches of the climbing tree in their backyard. Might Vicky see the fort as a hiding place in lieu of a tree?

  She strolled outside and approached the fort casually, keeping an eye out for Vicky. A flash of green material caught her eye before Vicky’s excited little voice piped out from the top of the slide.

  “Briony! Here I am. Briony!” She leaned out and waved, a giant, two-handed, aircraft-directing wave. With a thump and a bump, Vicky launched herself down the slide and ran to Bri.

  Two arms wrapped around her hips and a now-wonky French braid slapped her stomach as Vicky buried her head in Bri’s skirt. “You came back. Are you staying at my home again tonight?”

  A gasp, a tittered laugh, and a growing awareness of being under scrutiny hit Bri at the same time Harry strode towards them.

  “Vicky, where were you, Pumpkin? I was looking everywhere for you.”

  “Not everywhere, Daddy. You didn’t look where I was, but Briony found me. She’s clever. Can she stay with us tonight?”

  A dull pink rose in Harry’s cheeks.

  Gym lady stood on the path holding the hand of a little boy. She grinned like a Cheshire cat, turned to a woman just entering the grounds and spoke behind her hand. Both women looked at Bri and Harry and Vicky, and giggled like schoolgirls.