The Girl in Steel-Capped Boots (11 page)

‘Hey there, it’s Madame Engineer,’ one of them called out. ‘Would you like to join us? We’ve been waiting for you.’

His friend lifted the lid off the Esky next to the table and waved his hand over the contents,
Sale of the Century
style.

She clutched her towel tighter. ‘No thanks.’

‘Come on, baby.’

‘What’s the matter? None of us good-looking enough for you?’

She stopped walking, running her eyes over them in disbelief. It wasn’t like they were all young studs in their twenties. There were a couple of fifty-somethings, mixed in with a healthy dose of mid-thirty pot bellies, and leather-skinned forty-year-olds who really should have got out of the sun ten years ago. Half of them were probably married, or divorced, or both, with families back home in Perth. What were they doing chasing after her? And like a bell going off in her head, the answer suddenly came to her.

She was sport.

It wasn’t personal. Their flirtation wasn’t serious. It was just that she was a distraction – a form of entertainment, a competition of sorts. Somewhere along the line, she had become a game and she didn’t like it.

Instinctively, her hands went to her hips and she surveyed them as a teacher might the rottenest year nine students. They must have caught her mood because they all sat up straighter and a couple pulled in their bare feet, so that they were tucked under the bench.

‘Have you no shame?’ she demanded. ‘Can’t I have a simple work-out at the gym in peace?’

‘Come on, Madame E, it’s all in good fun.’ One of them spread his hands jovially. ‘There’s a shortage of pretty girls in this town, so when the skid boys told everyone –’

Lena pounced. ‘
The skid boys
.’

‘Yeah, Fieldmouse and the others said that you went to the gym and they found out from Ethel what time so –’

‘The skid boys,’ she repeated, belatedly remembering that she might have let her gym visits slip to Fieldmouse while talking to Mike. ‘Those roaches!’

She shook her head and started walking, ignoring the protests from behind. Her anger had already left the men on the picnic benches and redirected itself. As her brain sorted through the issues, a new truth revealed itself.

So far, she had dealt with harassment by feigning deafness or giving a polite but firm brush-off. But the behaviour was only getting worse.

She had to do something more.

She had learned the hard way that letting people continue to make false assumptions about you only led to trouble. It was about time the skid boys knew who was boss. Suddenly a grin tickled her lips. What if she . . .? No, she couldn’t. The Barnes Inc Human Resources team back in Perth would have simultaneous coronaries if they found out. Bugger that! It was all well and good for a city-slicker HR manager to sue for sexual harassment. But how was that going to give her good engineering experience? How was that going to help her clear her conscience and earn her degree?

Her decision solidified. Lena was going to do this her way.

With new optimism, she looked at her watch. It was six-thirty pm – still a bit early to head over to the mess for dinner. She decided to do some laundry instead. Pulling a pair of baggy tracksuit pants on over her revealing bike shorts, she grabbed a sack of dirty clothes and headed in the direction of the nearest washing machine in donga seven. She was nearly there when she realised it was also a Monday which meant Bulldog would be doing his laundry there too. She spun around, intending to head to a different laundry donga on the other side of the camp site when guilt seized her. Did she really need to be so petty? The man was too arrogant for his own good but so far he was the only person who had decided to give her a second chance without being asked.

Really, if anything, she owed him a thank you for not getting her fired over the whole flag incident. If it weren’t for his silence, she’d be sitting on a plane right now, her career in shreds. Squaring her shoulders and tilting her chin up, she turned back to donga number seven.

Somebody had to be the bigger person here and this time it was going to be her.

She entered donga number seven, a long rectangular box housing ten top-loaders and five dryers, one of which was humming gently. Bulldog was sitting on a bench waiting for his cycle to finish; and her feet slowed.

Was this really such a good idea?

He looked up from the magazine he was reading when she stalled in the doorway. The smell of freshly showered male assailed her. Wet black hair curled attractively over his ears. His shirt was uncollared and casual, setting off his broad shoulders to advantage.

‘Er . . . hi,’ she said, hoping that she didn’t sound too nervous.

‘Hi,’ he replied. By contrast, his tone sounded somewhere between annoyed and resigned. He certainly didn’t smile. Instead, he returned his attention to his magazine, lifting one booted ankle and resting it casually on his knee. It was clear that he had decided to ignore her. Her resolve strangely strengthened by this attitude, she deliberately tried to prolong the small talk.

‘Busy day?’

He raised his eyes but not his chin. ‘Always.’ The twitch of his lips told her he knew what she was doing and was amused by it. It also made him look human. Human and unexpectedly more approachable. Encouraged by this, she chose the washing machine directly next to where he was sitting and opened the lid.

‘I’m glad I ran into you actually.’ She tried to keep her voice as laidback as possible. ‘I wanted to thank you for not saying anything about the flag.’

Silence.

She glanced over at him as she pulled her clothes from her sack and threw them into the machine. He had returned his attention to the magazine but feeling her eyes on him he nodded.

‘I mean, you were right. You could have had me fired, which would have been terrible for me. Not to mention humiliating.’

He nodded again without looking up.

‘I’m really glad you didn’t do that. This job means a lot to me. I’m just starting out, as you’ve probably guessed, and I want to do well at this. Get some good experience, if you know what I mean.’

He nodded a third time.

She bit her lip. ‘What are you reading?’

He closed the magazine. ‘Do you always talk this much?’

‘You consider this talking a lot? I –’ She broke off as something fell from the underside of the bundle she was transferring to the machine. A red number that could hardly be unfamiliar to him now lay draped over the brown boot propped on his knee. They both focused on it for a stunned second as she silently wished to die. ‘Er . . . that’s my, er . . . that’s my . . .’

It’s obvious what it is, idiot. Don’t say it!
Lena shut her gaping mouth.

Her heart rattled against her rib cage as he leaned forwards, inserted his long fingers between the lacy cups and lifted them off his boot.

‘So you can be rendered speechless.’ His blue eyes seared through hers. ‘Good to know.’

She snatched her bra from his proffered hand.

‘Thanks.’

He leaned back in his chair again but his attention did not return to his magazine as she now hoped. Hastily, Lena packed the rest of her clothes into the machine, tipped in some powder and closed the lid with a thump.

‘I was right about the gym, wasn’t I?’

His sudden re-entry into a conversation he had never wanted in the first place startled her. She turned around. ‘I beg your pardon?’

His gaze flicked to the clock on the wall. ‘It’s only six-thirty and you’re not there. Get a bit too crowded for you?’

Her lips thinned. ‘Something like that.’ His smile was just a little too I-told-you-so, so she decided on attack.

‘What about you? I haven’t seen you at the gym recently.’

One black brow lifted. ‘Been looking, have you?’

Okay, so maybe not the most well-thought-out attack in the history of repartee.
‘Of course not,’ she replied just a little too forcefully and then paused to modulate her voice. ‘Just a casual observation.’

He re-opened the magazine, flicking through it efficiently as he searched for something of interest. ‘Actually,’ he mentioned as an aside, ‘I’ve taken to running. It’s nice to get out of the camp sometimes.’

‘So what’s wrong with taking your R and R then? I hear you’re giving it a miss.’ The question left her lips before she could stop it. She looked down in mortification. She might as well have just admitted his every move fascinated her.
Damn it.

Fully expecting to be told it was none of her business or teased once more about following his movements, Lena was surprised by his reply. ‘They need me here. They don’t need me at home.’

He spoke the last words as if they were forced from him and she immediately knew that she was probing the edge of his ‘secret’. The question was, should she ignore it or press him further? She knew how carefully she guarded her own history. But her incurable curiosity won out.

‘Are you talking about your family? Why wouldn’t they need you?’

‘Did I say need?’ he mused. ‘I should have said want.’

‘They don’t want you?’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sure you’re over-dramatising.’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘Maybe if you –’

The hostile expression on his face cut her dead. ‘Don’t try and fix me,
Madame Engineer
. I’m not one of the camp drongos who’ll let you play Freud to get in your pants.’

His pointed use of her site nickname worried her. Previously she hadn’t minded being given this pompous calling. If she was going to be lumped with something, which was a guarantee, it might as well be that. Better than Sod or Plod which were very pickable given the guys liked to choose things that rhymed with a person’s last name. But the way Bulldog said it made it sound so presumptuous, like she was trying to put on airs or something.

Lena frowned. ‘I’m not trying to fix you, whatever that means. Why would you say something like that?’

Bulldog didn’t respond to her question and then to thwart her further his dryer stopped and beeped. He rolled up his magazine and stood to collect his clothes. Without thinking, she put her hand on his wrist to stop him.

‘Wait. You can’t just accuse me of something and then take off. Clearly, you have a problem with me and I want to know what it is.’

He looked down at her hand and she quickly detached it as though she’d been burned. He took his shirts from the machine and stuffed them in a laundry bag.

‘I asked you a question,’ Lena said, desperation squashing her fear.

But when he turned around to confront her, she had to step back from the storm gathering in his eyes.

Talk about making the wrong demand.

‘My problem is this,’ his voice was soft and deadly, ‘you are the least experienced person on this site and you don’t seem to know it. You want to be taken seriously but you organise fishing trips, steal flags and parade around in your underwear. You’ve got no life experience, no prudence and no ability to see beyond your own little bubble. You’re naive, stubborn and reckless. And the only reason you’ve had it so easy so far is because you’re so damn good-looking.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Gee, don’t hold back or anything.’

It was the most thorough insult she’d ever received. But what was it they said about Bulldog? He was a perfectionist. Clearly he applied that to his every pursuit.

His lips hardened. ‘You think this is a joke. Don’t you? Just like everything else. When are you going to learn that you can’t get through life on a smile? It doesn’t work that way. Especially not out here. You’re going to get hurt and you won’t see it coming.’

When he said nothing more, Lena decided it was her turn. Something in her brain was flashing in warning, but she was too appalled by his speech to remember that the client is always right.

‘Thank you very much for that illuminating review of my character, but it’s not as if you’re Mr Perfect. Sure, you’ve got heaps of experience, but no understanding of people. You want your men to respect you, but instead you’ve got them looking over their shoulders to make sure you’re not on their back. You’re domineering and obnoxious and you have no ability to see any point of view but your own. And, just to set the record straight, I have not had it easy!’

He opened his mouth and then shut it.

Lena shook her head. ‘If you dislike me so much, why the hell didn’t you just tell Carl about the flag? That would have got me off this site and out of your life as quickly as possible.’

‘With your
understanding of people
,’ his dark eyes smouldered, ‘I don’t know why you haven’t figured that out already.’

And on this cryptic note, he swung his sack over his shoulder and walked out.

Bulldog and his personality assessment from hell played on Lena’s mind all evening.

How dare he judge the way she spent her free time? How dare he suggest she got through life on her looks? How dare he put her in a box and label it ‘naive’?

He didn’t even know her.

At least Kevin, for all his faults, had only ever jumped to one bad conclusion about her. Bulldog had written a book on her shortcomings and was still adding pages.

Safely back in her donga, wearing her pink pyjamas and snuggled under the covers of her still unfamiliar bed, she was able to consider at leisure the pitfalls of being female in her profession.

Did all men really think that just because she was a girl, she’d never fit into the construction industry? Steel was just iron with a dash of carbon, for goodness sake. Lipstick had a more complicated chemical structure. And as for concrete –
please
. Anyone who made mud pies as a kid could figure out what to do with that!

The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. Normally, she pushed Kevin’s words out of her head. But now she found herself trying to recall more. Was there a hint she could pick up among them that could show her how to earn her colleagues’ respect? She fast-forwarded through the lovely times and her increasing detachment to their final conversa
tion, about six weeks after her final year exams. They’d had dinner and were drinking some of his somehow-very-special brandy back at his place; and Lena was summoning up her courage to tell Kevin how she’d been feeling – or not feeling. Things hadn’t been right between them for almost a month.

She was excited about the future and had a lot of plans. Kevin was critical about most of them. He was happy that she was looking for her first job but at the same time was concerned about the companies she’d chosen to apply to. When she’d suggested that maybe she’d take a year off and go backpacking around Europe instead, he hadn’t been pleased about that either. They hadn’t fought about it or anything, but Lena recognised the vibe she was getting from him. He wanted things to stay the same while she knew it was time for change.

That night, she’d had a speech fully rehearsed. But frustration and nerves made her just blurt it out. ‘Kevin, I want to break up.’

He’d whipped off his silver-framed glasses and fixed her with dark brown eyes that were both concerned and wary.

‘What did you say?’

She leaned forwards, clutching a sofa cushion for support. ‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t meant to come out like that.’

He ignored her apology. ‘Where is this coming from? It doesn’t make sense.’

She searched for a place to start. He took her silence for indecision and stood up, a smile of gentle indulgence curling his mouth. ‘Lena, if we have a problem, we can talk about it. Get through it together.’

Kevin put his glasses down, came around to her and placed warm hands on her shoulders. ‘We’re so close now. In a couple of days, exam results will be out and you’ll be a graduate. All these covert meetings will be at an end.’

‘I know and –’

‘We should be celebrating,’ he insisted, anxiety wrinkling his brow. ‘We’re done hiding now, Lena.’

‘It’s not that.’ She looked away. If she still loved him, she wouldn’t care who she had to keep it a secret from. But that was just the thing.

She didn’t.

How did you tell someone that you’d fallen out of love with them? Not because they were a bad person or they’d done anything wrong but just because the two of you didn’t view the world the same any more. She didn’t want to hurt him – he’d been good to her.

She got up too, but stepped out of his reach and walked over to the bookshelves on her right, scanning the titles in search of enlightenment. Finally she found her voice.

‘Kevin, when we started going out, keeping our relationship a secret was the best part. It was exciting and dangerous and sexy. And you . . .’ she turned back to him, indicating his person with a reverent lift of her hand ‘. . . are a beautiful man. Generous and confident in a way that none of the guys my own age are. I was attracted to that beyond anything. But now –’ She broke off as pain twisted his mouth.

‘Are you trying to say you’ve outgrown me?’

‘I still care for you a great deal,’ she protested. ‘I just don’t . . . love you.’

‘Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it?’ His voice was suddenly bitter. ‘That you would wait till now to tell me this?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You needed me to help you finish your degree. Now that you have, I’m dispensable.’

‘You can’t honestly believe that, Kevin,’ she returned hotly.