I shrugged. The girl was suspicious of us. I’d let Isak handle this. I had to, really. “You have a motorbike on a plane?”
The red trail bike sat propped on a stand a few meters away, engine ticking from the heat.
“Oh that. Ha! It’s not mine.” Absentmindedly, she flipped her ponytail from shoulder to behind her back. “Belongs here, but I use it to get from the strip to wherever when I’m here. I refuel. Restock from drums. Used to visit the Vincents when they were living here. Her hubs passed away, sadly. Hi there!”
Isak moved out past me, and she backed away a step.
He held out his hand. Warily she shook it.
I thought I saw some recognition pass across her face, but it was gone quickly. Had he done something?
It angered me beyond the usual. I was used to him mindfucking people, but not her. If he dared to… I ran down. A useless threat.
“Mrs. Vincent said she was letting you live here for a while. Long as you wanted to, really?” She scratched her head, legs planted like a man’s would be. This was a self-confident woman, like I was, once upon a time.
My heart sank. Please, not her.
“Yes. She did say that.” And he smiled at her, let go of her hand.
Only then did I realize he’d been still holding her hand for an extended length of time. I frowned.
Was he sneaking in his hooks? Fuck him if he was.
“I’m Georgia West.”
“Isak here, and this is Red.” He came to me and slipped his arm about my waist, all casual-like.
It was as if we were instantly man and wife. I leaned into him. Fuck, I was a weathercock, going back and forth.
“Uh-huh. Nice to meet you both.”
I smiled at her. “Brave of you to fly small planes.”
“Oh, my dad did it too. Taught me from when I was a teenager. He still flies. We’re a small company in these parts.”
Banjo galloped up from wherever he’d vanished to and stuck his nose in her crotch.
What with her giggles and kneeling to pat the tail-wagging newcomer, things somehow calmed.
Isak no longer seemed about to bite.
We invited her in for a cup of something hot and cookies, or rather they were biscuits as they called cookies here – confusing as hell, some of the Aussie slang. I knew we had tea and coffee because we had bought some along the way. Luckily, we also had working faucets and a saucepan to boil the water. Though the water came with bonus brownness. Milk and the tea or coffee helped disguise the hue and the tang. I prayed the fridge worked or we would be throwing out a lot of food.
We sat on the rickety timber chairs and an old musty sofa, and we talked.
It was so, so strange.
So normal.
“You need a kettle for the tea.” She gulped another swallow, grimaced but took another. “And other stuff. Say, come down to the pub in Yellert on this coming Friday arvo and I will introduce you to the locals, buy you a beer. They’ll get a kick out of having two Americans here.”
Isak wasn’t American. I let the words wash over me and decided that arvo must mean afternoon.
The conversation seemed dreamlike, and every now and then I spotted the flash of interest in her eyes that said she was stripping him of his shirt, at least. Hormones, and Isak was attractive.
When she tipped the leftovers from her mug into the kitchen sink, his gaze fell to considering the roundness of her pert ass. I could see it clear as day.
She had no idea what and who she was toying with.
A knot of anxiety unraveled in my belly when she left. I waved to her as she roared off on the bike, with Isak beside me.
“You didn’t do anything to her?” I bit my lip, frowned up at him, aware of how close I might come to annoying him.
“No. I was good. Choice, remember? Good people choose to do the right thing. I chose not to do anything to her.”
Again, he had quoted my words to me.
He brushed his fingers along my jaw, holding my attention.
“I missed getting married in Cuba, by a slip of fate. Instead, I was given these mesmer powers. Each day, I learn more about how to control them. I’m glad the wedding fell through, because instead I found you. Why would I need her?”
Because. Always because. I knew how he worked.
He wouldn’t have me soon, unless that was a Freudian slip?
It must be. The truth was in those words.
It wasn’t a great surprise.
I focused past him and saw the one thing left unloaded from the back of the ute. The big suitcase. It was partially covered. That thing was steeped in my terror.
I could never trust him. Not really, really trust him. Isak was a loaded weapon, even with the drug in his system. And yet, coming here had revealed something to me that I had never realized before. It was something I should have seen coming.
This new Isak with his attempt to fit into society in the best way he could – I liked him. I liked some of him. The bits he let me see that were not purely villainous had their allure.
I needed to see a psychiatrist. Stockholm syndrome had nothing on this.
CHAPTER 17
RED
By Friday arvo – I was getting the hang of this slang – we had the farmhouse well organized regarding food and functioning electrical things such as fridges, hot water, fans, and
