Bilgarra Springs (22 page)

As he moved he sniffed the air. Smoke was coming from somewhere. He raised his hand above his eyes to deal with the glare and scanned the horizon. Finally he spotted it, a small grass fire not too far up the north paddock. He could see Gerry a hundred metres away, headed towards the barracks. He put his fingers in his mouth and let out an ear splitting whistle to get his attention. Gerry’s head flew up and Cal pointed. With that, Cal started running towards the Cruiser parked under the stringy bark tree near the water tanks. Gerry also ran over and they took off in a shower of stones to beat it out before it got too good a hold on the dry grass. At least this was one fire Cal knew how to deal with.

fifteen

G
hosts of the
P
ast

The main topic of conversation over dinner that night was the grass fire. Gerry and Cal had quickly beaten it out with dampened hessian bags before it had taken hold. They weren’t sure what had sparked it. Aurora felt guilty that she had been there with Cal and should have smelt the smoke herself. She had been that caught up in her own misery that she had totally missed something that could have been catastrophic. She now understood why there was a tank of water in the back of each of the cruisers and rolled up bags tied to it.

Once the excitement of the potential fire was over the conversation had turned to the fact that the Cowboys were playing at home this weekend. Aurora had never been a football follower and was quite surprised when the group as a whole decided that they would go to the game in Townsville this weekend. From what they were saying, she gathered that the match between the Cowboys and the Warriors would be something extraordinary. Not knowing the slightest thing about football, she had stayed completely out of the conversation.

As they talked, Aurora wasn’t sure whether she wanted to be a part of the group that went or not. She figured that she would be incredibly bored at the game. She had never bothered to watch it on TV. The State of Origin matches, supposedly the best of the best, didn’t even hold her attention. On the plus side though, she would like the opportunity to revisit Townsville. She was flying out of there when she went home, but that wouldn’t be anything like spending time there with people who were as good as locals.

In their discussion, it seemed to be assumed that she would be a part of the group going there for the weekend and going to the game. They had factored her into it during the initial part of the conversation. When they did a final confirmation ask around she had decided that she would go and if it was as boring as she thought it was going to be there was nothing lost. There was always the outside chance that she would enjoy it.

She was grateful that it was Heather and Con who were doing the organising of it all. Heather darted inside once final numbers were decided to call the ticket booking line. Aurora was finding it hard to meet Callan’s eyes. Revealing her vulnerability earlier had made her feel very uncomfortable around him and he seemed to be equally uncomfortable around her, assuming she was judging his behaviour correctly.

She could also feel Fiona’s eyes on her which wasn’t helping. There was only so much emotional upheaval she could deal with at any one time and she had absolutely reached her limit. Between the revelations that she had made today and the bombshell in the journal, she distinctly felt like she was on an emotional roller coaster ride and it certainly wasn’t fun. As soon as she could do so without being rude, she excused herself and made her way back to her room.

She had only been there for around five minutes when there was a knock at the door. Aurora opened it to find Trudy standing on the other side. A worried look on her face.

‘Sorry to disturb you, but you were very quiet at dinner and you are an almost ghostly pale colour. I just want to make sure that you’re okay...’

Trudy’s voice trailed away at the end. She didn’t want to intrude into something that was none of her business, or into an area of Aurora’s life where she wasn’t welcome, but she wanted to make sure that Aurora was okay all the same. Given Aurora’s behaviour, and pallor, and Callan’s unusually subdued nature, which she would bet her life savings wasn’t due to the tiny grassfire this afternoon, there was certainly something going on, and if she could help, then she would.

Aurora did her best to smile, which came a long way short of the real thing.

‘I’m fine Trudy. Just very tired is all.’

Trudy didn’t believe her for a minute but she let the matter drop just the same. She would take it up with Callan when she got outside. She wouldn’t expect it of him, but if he had done anything to hurt that girl she was going to give him what for. She gave Aurora a smile.

‘No worries. I’ll catch you in the morning. Night.’

Aurora did her best to flick a smile back and closed the door, leaning her head against it. She could just imagine that conversation had she told the truth –
Actually Trudy, I have just discovered that my grandmother had an affair with your great uncle by marriage and to rub salt into the wound, Fiona kept that fact from me. Oh, and by the way, I punched your brother-in-law this afternoon, actually not once, but twice and then I told him all about my husband beating me senseless and the miscarriage, which I am assuming, has killed any feelings that he may have had for me. But no, I’m fine.

Aurora lifted her head off the door and turned around, grabbing her pyjamas from under the pillow. The fact that she had drifted into extreme sarcasm mode meant that she was over-tired. She needed to sleep.

Trudy, for her part, wasn’t going to be put off quite that easily. Luckily for her she found Callan in the kitchen rinsing out his glass before leaving it on the draining board. The noise from the group outside had been loud enough that he hadn’t heard her come in. She stood silently in the doorway, waiting for him to turn around. When he did he was moving his swollen nose slightly, listening for any movement in the bone. It was still incredibly sore. Aurora packed quite a punch for a girl.

Trudy moved forward, her mission temporarily forgotten in her curiosity about his nose.

‘What the hell have you done to yourself? I noticed that your nose was red over dinner, but it’s also a bit swollen now that I can see it properly. What happened?’

Cal looked up at her. If Trudy wasn’t mistaken, he looked guilty. She didn’t say anything further, just gave him the ‘I’m waiting’ look that never failed to work with the girls, or Rick for that matter. It seemed that it worked with him as well, as he only paused for a couple of seconds before he gave a grudging reply.

‘I got hit in the nose today.’

Trudy’s eyebrows drew together with that.

‘By who?’

Callan’s hackles went up.

‘Doesn’t matter. It’s just bloody sore.’

Trudy wasn’t going to be put off that easily.

‘Don’t fob me off Cal. Who hit you?’

He didn’t answer, though now he looked annoyed, not that Trudy particularly cared. She probed a bit more.

‘You know as well as I do Cal that I won’t let it drop until I find out what happened. Either you tell me or I will find another way to find out.’

Cal was generally pretty easy going, but Trudy could tell that she had just hit a nerve with him, which only served to make her even more curious. She was starting to wonder if it had anything to do with him punching Keith last weekend. Cal’s voice was sharp when he replied.

‘You do realise that it’s actually none of your business, don’t you?’

Trudy gave him a knowing look and chuckled.

‘Of course I know that it is none of my business. That won’t stop me finding out though. So we either do it the easy way and you tell me, or we do it the hard way and I keep asking the others until I find out.’

Callan positively scowled at her.

‘You do realise that you missed your true calling don’t you. You should have moved to the States and joined the FBI, or one of the overseas groups that use thumb screws or water torture.’

Trudy wasn’t going to let him get to her.

‘Well, that is always an option if I get sick of it out here. It would probably pay better too. So...’

Cal by this stage had quite a head of steam up and the infuriating woman had the audacity to stand there with her arms crossed and her eyebrows raised, tapping her foot. Rationally, he knew that at 38 years old he didn’t have to answer to her, but he also knew from experience that if he didn’t tell her she would find out and if she started to talk to the others he would end up fielding a whole stack more questions than if he just told her outright, and for Aurora’s sake, the less people that knew the better. Cal hesitated a moment too long and Trudy cut in again, her eyes narrowing.

‘It wasn’t Keith was it?’

That really infuriated him.

‘Of course it wasn’t Keith. That little dweeb wouldn’t get close enough to me to actually manage to land one on me, not to mention the fact that he wouldn’t be game. If you must know, Aurora hit me.’

Cal at least had the satisfaction of seeing the total surprise register on Trudy’s face. Her eyebrows nearly hit her hairline.

‘Aurora hit you?’

Cal wiggled his nose again.

‘She sure did.’

Trudy’s eyes narrowed so far that her eyebrows nearly met in the middle and she took a step towards him.

‘Why? What did you do to her?’

She was really starting to piss him off now. If she jabbed her finger in his chest he didn’t want to be responsible for his actions.

‘I didn’t actually do anything to her.’

‘Come off it Cal. She’s a lovely girl. She is highly unlikely to just waltz up to you and hit you for no reason. So, what did you do to her?’

Cal’s voice went flint hard.

‘As I already told you, I didn’t do anything to her. We just had a little misunderstanding, which we have now sorted out. And, if you don’t mind, for Aurora’s sake, I would like to keep this conversation between us.’

Trudy looked intently at him.

‘Does your grandmother know about it?’

Cal huffed out a breath.

‘No she doesn’t and I would like to keep it that way.’

This time it was Trudy’s turn to huff.

‘She will be furious if she finds out and you didn’t tell her.’

‘I realise that but she won’t find out because, as I already said, it’s sorted and she doesn’t need to know. You didn’t need to know either for that matter, but it was easier to tell you and let it drop, than for you to stir everybody up and for me to have to answer all their questions as well.’

With that Cal left the kitchen. Trudy watched him go, wondering what on earth was actually going on and whether he was genuinely protecting Aurora or merely covering his own butt. She had never known him to lie or manipulate. He was a fairly straight up and down kind of guy. She would have to keep her eyes peeled and her ear to the ground.

Silently though she applauded Aurora for hitting him hard enough to do some damage and her face creased into a huge smile. He had obviously deserved it at the time and it would do his ego good to be whopped by a girl. That thought gave her a chuckle and she rejoined the others grinning from ear to ear. She had already been thinking that the two of them would be a good match, now she was certain. She just hoped that they could see it before it was too late.

After breakfast the next morning Aurora went out to the front verandah, eager to look for any signs of the Jacaranda tree. She was completely lost in thought when she felt a hand on her shoulder and she jumped with fright. She turned to find Fiona’s smiling face and immediately turned back to surveying the front yard.

‘Sorry love, didn’t mean to scare you.’

Aurora didn’t turn to face Fiona when she replied. She still had enough resentment bubbling under the surface to not care if she was rude.

‘You didn’t frighten me as such. I didn’t hear you approach and wasn’t expecting it.’

Aurora’s tones were clipped, a fact not lost on Fiona. A sadness crossed her features and she seemed to summon an inner strength before continuing.

‘Love, you have been avoiding me. I think we need to seriously talk.’

Aurora twisted around to look Fiona straight in the eye. She hadn’t intended to talk to her yet about Gran and Will, but as they were alone out here and she had brought it up, it seemed as good a time as any. Aurora’s voice was matter-of-fact with an angry undertone when she replied.