HOT SET: Playing with Fidelity (A romantic suspense novel) (15 page)

“
Yes you did.” He raised an eyebrow at her.” It’s not fair that you do that. Quite mean really.”

“
Okay.”He was actually being told off. “Sorry mum.”

“
I would hope if your mother saw it, she’d say the same.”

He laughed at that
. “My Mum’d smack me over the back of the head.”

“
Sounds like a good woman.”

“
Tell you what. I’ll try to remember not to smile at people. I’ll scowl and be the brooding, grumpy celebrity – how’s that?”

“
Much better. And only wear black clothes and sunglasses, even at night.”

“
And throw tantrums if my water isn’t precisely at 18 degrees.”

“
Absolutely.” They made a tentative, unspoken truce as the plane soared away from Sydney, its nose pointing west.

Rhys spoke while chewing his muffin, “What’d ya know? My parents met in the UK, too.”

“
Really?”

“
Yeah, Dad was backpacking and met Mum in Wales. She was behind the bar and even though he had to go back to Brissy in three days, he decided not to leave Wales without her. Apparently he lived on the poverty line and overstayed his Visa by several months until she agreed to leave with him. Pretty romantic when you think about it.”

“
That’s cool. I don’t really know how mine met except that it was when Dad when to London on a rugby trip. Mum was a Finishing School girl and has been seriously strict with Patty and I. Minding our Ps and Qs and never, ever stirring the pot.”

“
That explains some things.”

“
What things?”

“
Only that you’re always so polite and nice to everyone.”

“
You’ve noticed that, huh?”

“
Even Barry likes you and that’s saying something.”

“
You’d like Barry, too, if you stopped harassing the poor bloke.”

“
Barry knows I’m being obnoxious just to stir him.”

“
At least you know you’re being obnoxious.”

“
Hah. Anyway, why are you so nice to everyone? Worried they might not like you or something?”

Kate
studied a crease in her pants and didn’t say anything. He’d hit the nail on the head and no one, not even Mark, had openly questioned this characteristic before. It was just the way she was programmed.

“
I guess so. I just like being nice to people, it makes me happy, too.”

Rhys
asked quietly, “so what about people who aren’t nice to you?”

“
That’s their prerogative.” Then Kate remembered her narky response to Norm Treyelli. “Although I can fight back if I need to.”

“
Hope so, or you’ll spend your whole life being walked over.”

The crease in
Kate’s pants fascinated her once more. If only he knew.

“
Anyway, enough about me. I’m wondering how you’ll survive in a tent, being the big, rich celebrity and all.”

He huffed noisily
. “Doesn’t bother me; I like camping.”

“
Ah, so not so pretentious after all.”

“
Oh, I’m pretentious. I just like seeing everyone else suffer, too.”

Kate
laughed, relieved the subject had changed.

T
hey kept up a steady chatter as the flight when on.

Rhys
then asked Kate where she’d travelled to, which was pitifully little compared to his four passports.

He asked her,
“So, money no object, where would you go?”

“
Bora Bora.”

“
Didn’t even hesitate.”

“
It’s my dream ever since I did a project on French Polynesia in primary school and was goggle-eyed at the images I was cutting out of travel brochures. It’d be awesome to go.”

“
I’d pictured you as more of a mountain girl.”

“
Oh, I am as well, but you said “money no object” and that’s the place of my ultimate fantasy.” She stared off into the plane bulkhead for a moment. “I’d stay in one of those bungalows over the water and get massages every day over a glass floor.”

He grinned
. “Hope you get there one day.”

“
Me too, although I highly doubt it. Costs six-months wages per night to stay in one of those things! But we can all dream. How about you?”

Rhys
stopped and thought about it. “You know, I don’t really know. Have travelled so much in the last five years I’ve pretty much been everywhere I wanted. But, if I really had to choose my perfect holiday, it’d be a few weeks in a cottage on a private beach on the Queensland coast where I could veg and surf as much as I wanted.”

“
Sounds lovely.”

“
Yeah. Have has this little dream of purchasing a place just so I could have it there and it’d be an excuse to go home occasionally, but have never got around to it.”

“
Well, then I hope you get it one day.”

“
Thanks, me too.”

There was a natural pause in the conversation.

“Tell me something about yourself,” asked Rhys.

“
Like what?”

“
Something that a journalist wouldn’t know.”

“
Ummm…” she paused for a moment. “I love hand rubs.”

“
Really?”

“
Yep, knocks me out. If I get a massage, I always ask that my hands get rubbed first.”

“
Interesting.”

“
Now your turn.”

“
Okay… I’m very clumsy when stressed. I actually fall down, a lot.”

“
You?” Kate laughed. “But you always seem so… so…”

“
Awesome?”

“
Balanced.”

“
Awesome is better.”

“
Balanced works.”

“
Usually I am, but for some reason, when I’m stressed or hurried, my brain disengages from my feet and I crash and burn.”

“
Hope to see it one day.”

“
Not if I can help it.”

“
How about I get you stressed just to see what happens?”

“
I’m sure you could achieve that easily.”

“
I should be offended by that.”

“
Are you?”

“
Nah, much of what you say offends me so I’m getting used to it.”

“
Maybe calling you a minx was too tame.”

“
Typical. Can’t win the fight so you just resort to name calling.”

“
Yeah, whatever.”

“Ah, Mr
Jackman?” Rhys was fiddling with his headset and didn’t react.

“Mr
Jackman?” Rhys glanced up at the voice and standing just behind him were two of the ladies discussing him in the terminal. Both women were dress in soft pastel pants with striped cotton t-shirts and practical jogging shoes. One’s hair was cut into a bob and the other was short and blow-waved cleverly.

“Could I have an autograph, please?” the one with the bob spoke.

“Um, I’m not Hugh Jackman. I’m Rhys Bradford.”

“It’s okay Mr
Jackman, I know you’re travelling incognito and won’t tell anyone, I promise. But I’d really love your autograph to show the kids back home.”

“But I’m not Hugh
Jackman.”

“You’re not?”

“I’m sorry but no, I am Rhys Bradford.”

“Oh, but you’re in the movies, yes? I’m sure I recognised you.”

Rhys heard Kate snigger.

“Yes, I’ve made a few.”

“Oh, good. I thought you had. It was like I was telling Bette here, I know that man is famous, he just looks it. Which ones?”

“I’m sorry, which ones what?”

“Which movies?”

“Oh, I was in
Rome, Practising With Leela, Dungeon Master
…”

“Australia?”

“Sorry?”

“You were in Australia with Nicole Kidman.”

“No, that was Hugh Jackman.”

“Oh. Can we have your autograph anyway? That way we can look you up when we land and I can still show the kids when we get home.”

Kate was on the verge of blacking out from keeping her laughter under control.

“Umm, sure.”
Rhys signed the proffered tickets and napkins. “What’s your name?”

“Rebecca and this is Bette.”

“That’s B-E-T-T-E,” Bette injected.

“Okay.”

Bette simpered as Rhys signed the paper with a flourish.

“Sorry I don’t know any of your movies,” said Rebecca.

“That’s perfectly fine.” Rhys projected a measured smile until the women moved down the plane.

Kate blew a loud raspberry when the breath she’d been frantically holding on to
released in a snort.

She stuttered,
“Oh, that was fantastic, Hugh!”

“For you.”

“Oh, awesome.” Kate wiped her eyes, barely able to speak. “I heard them at the airport calling you Hugh Jackman and I was wondering what they were going to do.”

“So you knew about this?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t feel like warning me?”

“Not a chance.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Oh, any time. It was worth it.” She burst into mirth again.

Rhys grumbled,
“I can see this is going to be an interesting few months.”

Kate grabbed a serviette to wipe her eyes.

“If it’s going to be anything like today, it’s going to be entertaining, too.”

And she started laughing again.

A half-hour later, the plane landed on the broad expanse of the Alice Springs airport.

At the airport, the hired driver opened the coach door and the cast and crew loaded in.

The air conditioning welcomingly embraced their skin as the temperature reading in the
TV screen of the bus read 34 degrees. It was a very dry heat which helped the comfort levels a little, but to unseasoned coast people, the cool mini-bus was an appreciative end to the short trudge across the car park. Along with the heat was a seemingly impenetrable fog of flies that joyously adhered themselves the visitors’ skin, happy to have fresh meat. The cast and crew complaints spread thick and fast. Rhys and Mira climbed into a hire car and disappeared before the rest had even got their luggage loaded – the perks of being a millionaire. Although it did cause Kate to wonder why he’d travelled economy with everyone else. Strange.

Leaving soon after, the bus
was driven out onto the Stuart Highway; the main thoroughfare that dissected the north/south axis of Australia. This mighty, historical road started at Port Augusta at the southern end of Australia and traversed 3,000 kilometres over some of the driest, inhospitable land on the planet to end at Darwin in the North. Alice Springs sat in the middle.

Splitting the town in two
were the arid, dark red Macdonald Ranges. The Ranges were a high, cracked, ancient fold that ran almost perfectly east to west for hundreds of kilometres. Alice Springs sat in one of the few natural breaches in the range, carved out over countless centuries by the seasonal Todd River, making it and its natural spring a prime place for Aboriginal, and later pioneer, settlement.

Kate
had barely torn her eyes from the windows for even a second while the bus trundled along the highway. How could they still be on the same planet let alone the same country?

Alice
Springs was surprisingly developed; a large sign on the way in listed the population at 25,000. Not bad, considering they were in the geographical centre of the world’s largest island continent. They were driving along the highway into town, which was very wide with a large median strip of sprawling brown dirt and clumps of stumpy gum trees and other hardy bushes. The great northern train line that ran from Adelaide to Darwin passed parallel to their left, 30-metres off the main road. The sun beamed brightly, lighting up the few grass and garden patches in the front of official buildings, carefully tended with recycled water due to the extreme dryness of the region. Finally, the bus came to a large intersection and the central business district loomed in front. It was a stark contrast to the unambiguous landscape they’d just traversed.

“
Wow, it’s big. You’d hardly believe we were in the middle of a desert,” Kate said to Jane sitting on her right.