‘Hux, my love,’ said Ethel. ‘You’ve turned very formal all of a sudden. Where’s Charlie?’
‘He’s caught up with some, er, stuff,’ said Hux, putting a tick mark on whatever printout he was looking at. ‘And we’re tightening up procedure around here with names and whatnot, so yes. Very formal. Dot Cracknell?’
‘How’s your mum?’ said Dot.
‘A force of nature, as always. And this is still your current address at 6 Pialba Street, Yindi Creek, ladies?’
‘Of course it is. Where in heck would we be moving to at our age, unless it was the town cemetery? Are Malvina and Ronnie coming to the next Yakka committee meeting? There’s talk,’ Dot added in outraged tones, ‘that Thargomindah are wanting to move their shearing event and it’ll be a clash with our show.’
‘Really?’ Hux had dropped the formal pilot tone. ‘That’s good news for Mum.’
‘Goodnews?’ said Dot. ‘Gavin Huxtable, wash your mouth out with soap.’
He was grinning now—clearly he and the Dirt Girls were more than a little acquainted. ‘You know Mum got bumped off the Yakka committee’s executive team after she’d been president for, what, twelve years? Apparently her archrival found some archaic rule in the constitution that said she couldn’t run again. She’s been looking for a way to strongarm her way back, and sorting out a stoush with Thargomindah might be the way.’
‘I suppose that’s true. And how’s Regina? We don’t see her in town very often these days. Not like Fiona; that girl’s a card, always popping in to see us. We love seeing her, don’t we, Ethel?’
ReginaandFiona? Wife and ex-wife? Girlfriend?Daughter?Jo concentrated on the blue of the helicopter skids to prevent herself from checking out Hux’s ring finger. Who cared who Regina and Fiona were? Not her, that was for sure.
‘Fine. My sisters are all fine, I assume,’ said Hux. ‘I just got back into Yindi Creek last night, a little earlier than planned.’
‘Dear heaven.’ This was Ethel, whose bob was wilting a little in the heat. ‘Did you rush back, then? Dot, it must be true!’
‘What must be true?’ said Jo.
Hux sighed. ‘I don’t know what you’ve heard, but there’s nothi—’
‘Now, don’t get all stiff lipped, pet. It’s all over town by now, so you may as well tell us. Has the man been found? Is there a search party being organised?’
‘I’m not up with any details of anything, Dot, I’m just here to fly your charter,’ Hux said in exactly the sort of stiff-lipped way Dot had just advised him against. ‘Where were we? Oh, yes. Just one name to check off: Joanne Alessandro.’
That explained the surprise when he saw her. ‘Uh, yeah. The credit card I used for the booking is in my married name. Um … my former married name.’ Changing stuff like that was on another of her to-do lists, but after three years of lawyers and property transfers and arguing, she’d been letting her life admin slide. Lawyer fatigue, bank fatigue, form fatigue—she had them all. ‘It’s, um, Joanne Tan, actually. Now. Again. Professionally speaking. Which is why I’m here, of course. Dr Joanne Tan.’ Why was she still talking? Why was she bleating on about her qualifications (and her marital status) like anyone cared?
Those chambray eyes looked into hers for a long moment where nothing was said. Or maybe stuffwassaid, just not by her or Hux, because at some point she tuned in when she heard Dot muttering phrases like ‘pop into the donger, love’ and ‘ask Phaedra if you can use the loo’ and ‘give Charlie a kiss for us if he’s in there’.
There was gossip afoot, and while Jo didn’t actually much care why Charlie needed a kiss from the Cracknells, a distraction was called for. Something to belay the tension.
‘What’s all the fuss about, Dot? Ethel?’
Dot rushed in with the story, possibly to get in ahead of Ethel. ‘Well, pet, Rosie—that’s the hairdresser—’ Dot gave her lopsided updo a little pat, ‘—was delivering copies of theWestern Echoto the bakery this morning—that’s the local newsletter run by one of the town residents. Adverts and whatnot, a few local stories and the puzzle page, and the kids at the district schools and School of the Air write articles in it for their Media Arts subject.’ Dot dropped her voice and leant in as though there was a crowd within ear shot, rather than a hot and empty outback airstrip with maybe half-a-dozen cicadas, a battered-looking avgas fuel pump and a channel-billed cuckoo their only witnesses, before continuing in dire tones: ‘The front page is a story about some guy who was on a tourist trip on a helicopter on Saturday and how he got left behind in Woop Woop somewhere, and now he’s missing.’
Hux had gone pale beneath his tan. ‘No-one’s left anyone behind, Dot.’
He sounded grim, and no wonder. Jo was reminded of those diving trips you heard about on the news every few years, where ten people left on the boat in the morning, but only nine people returned, and nobody thought to wonder about the person out treading water in shark-infested waters with a diminishing supply of oxygen. There weren’t any sharks out Woop Woop, but there were other dangers just as deadly, like dehydration and heat stroke and the world’s most venomous snakes, none of which she would wish on anyone.
What she did wish was that the drama, if that’s what it was, hadn’t stuffed up her carefully made plans. Now she was going to be trapped in a tiny airborne vessel with Gavin Huxtable when she was feeling way, way too fragile to cope.
CHAPTER
7
Hux had never been so thrilled to clamp on a set of headphones and crank up an engine. The blades roared into motion and the centrifugal forces making the helicopter cabin buck like a bull in a rodeo were almost enough to override the bucking of his heart.
Jo.HisJo. Sitting beside him barely eight inches away, looking even lovelier than she had when he’d first laid eyes on her.
TYSON: Er … make thatmyJo, pal. I’m the one with the baggage.
Huh. His main character had a point. Tyson Jones’s greatest flaw—his inability to get over the heartbreak of his past relationship with the sexy-but-standoffish Lana—was the foundation on which Hux had built a character so popular he’d managed to spin him out over eight books, two bestselling graphic novels and a TV deal.