‘I mean, next time I’m not arresting you for tampering with evidence from a crime scene,’ she said, plucking the plastic bag with the bottle top from the table.
He watched her walk away.
TYSON: I like her. And that is one fine tush, am I right?
Hux hadn’t noticed. He liked someone else.
He hadn’t finished his coffee, so he sat back in his chair and watched Yindi Creek come to life. There was a broken pipe waiting for him, but he’d just decided he didn’t care about that. Charlie was going to be okay. The business had a steady stream of bookings coming back in.
And it was time he went back to Coolum before he got so far behind on his writing he’d be the one facing financial ruin.
First thing he was going to write was a happy ending for Tyson.
TYSON: You mean … I’m going to get to kiss the girl?
Well, somebody needed to kiss the girl. And it didn’t look like it was going to be Hux.
CHAPTER
39
‘Hux hasgone?’
Maggie sighed. ‘Oh, pet, yes. He’s gone. He’s never usually here through the summer, he just came back to help Charlie out when the business was getting destroyed by all that talk about Dodgy Dave. Did you read about it in the papers? He was a drug runner!’
All that silly daydreaming she’d been indulging in on the plane out here about bathroom lock failures and dropped towels and apologies (hers) and forgiveness (his) went pfft.
She was an idiot. Of course he’d carried on with his life. Weeks had passed, after all. Christmas had come and gone, the year had rolled into the next, and she’d spent the time negotiating hundredpage contracts with government bodies who didn’t seem to like to agree to anything or sign anything (or pay anything) in the months of December and January. Just negotiating the maze of who had to approve what had been time consuming. The Minister for Arts, the board of trustees, the heads of foundations who had provided grants to fund special projects in the past and who might provide grants again. Organisations with special imaging equipment who might be willing to collaborate … Her thesis had been less work and she’d had four years to complete that.
‘Sorry, love. He’s always back by the end of February to help with the Yakka, if that’s any consolation. He’s in the shearing contest.’
‘Is he?’ That could work. The end of February could totally work.
‘Oh, yes. The Huxtables are always at the show en masse. Maybe you should come back for it.’
Hmm. It was too soon to tell Maggie of the plans she had underway. Besides, calling them ‘plans’ seemed a little formal. A little cart before horse. At the moment all she had was lists in a notebook and project proposal documents she’d compiled to win over the hearts and minds (and financial backing) of the board of trustees of the Museum of Natural History. She’d yet to put them to anyone who could actually turn those plans into action.
‘Do you still need a room?’ Maggie said. ‘Or was my temporary guest the only reason for your visit?’
She could feel her cheeks heating up. ‘Not the only reason. I left some gear out at Corley Station and I need to go collect it.’
‘You checked the roads?’
‘Not yet. Why, has there been rain?’
‘Not over Yindi Creek, but in the region. Some of that water might be working its way through, so you’d better call the shire council.’
‘Will do. I haven’t talked to the Dirt Girls lately. How are they?’
‘Spending a lot of time at home in the aircon in this weather, pet. I see them every Monday for their weekly night out, as usual.’
‘Nice.’
‘You’re not planning on taking them out to Corley with you, are you? It’s too hot now for them.’
It was almost too hot for her. Certainly too hot for her and Luke to set up camp again and keep digging, as much as she would have loved to. No, this trip out to Corley was to reclaim the gear she’d left there and take a fresh series of photographs using quadrant thirteen as the central point of the new dig she was proposing.
‘No. But I’ll pop in and see them before I head back to Brisbane. I have some news for them that I think is going to be good enough to enter into that scrapbook of theirs.’
