He bundled up his belongings, tossed them to the ground outside the bus and lowered himself carefully down.
‘How is your leg?’ Eve asked.
‘I’ll live.’
Okay. Man of few words. Clearly, he’d spent too much time in his own company.
The inspection team made quick work of hunting over every inch of her converted bus and Sullivan’s saddlebags. She’d become proficient at dumping or eating anything that was likely to get picked up at the border and so, this time, the team only found one item to protest—a couple of walnuts not yet consumed.
Into the bin they went.
She lifted her eyes towards Sullivan, deep in discussion with one of the border staff who had him in one ear and their phone on the other. Arranging assistance for his crippled bike, presumably. As soon as they were done, he limped back towards her and hiked his bags up over his shoulder.
‘Thanks for the ride,’ he said as though the effort half choked him.
‘You don’t need to go into Eucla?’ Just as she’d grown used to him.
‘They’re sending someone out to grab me and retrieve my bike.’
‘Oh. Great that they can do it straight away.’
‘Country courtesy.’
As opposed to her lack of...? ‘Well, good luck with your—’
It was then she realised she had absolutely no idea what he was doing out here, other than hitting random emus. In all her angsting out on the deserted highway, she really hadn’t stopped to wonder, let alone ask.
‘—with your travels.’
His nod was brisk and businesslike. ‘Cheers.’
And then he was gone, back towards the border security office and the little café that catered for people delayed while crossing. Marshall Sullivan didn’t seem half so scary here in a bustling border stop, though his beard was no less bushy and the ink dagger under his skin no less menacing. All the what-ifs she’d felt two hours ago on that long empty road hobbled away from her as he did.
And she wondered how she’d possibly missed the first time how well his riding leathers fitted him.
IT WAS THE raised voices that first got Marshall’s attention. Female, anxious and angry, almost swallowed up by drunk, male and belligerent.
‘Stop!’
The fact a gaggle of passers-by had formed a wide, unconscious circle around the spectacle in the middle of town was the only reason he sauntered closer instead of running on his nearly healed leg. If something bad was happening, he had to assume someone in the handful of people assembled would have intervened. Or at least cried out. Him busting in to an unknown situation, half-cocked, was no way to defuse what was clearly an escalating situation.
Instead, he insinuated himself neatly into the heart of the onlookers and nudged his way through to the front until he could get his eyeballs on things. A flutter of paper pieces rained down around them as the biggest of the men tore something up.
‘You put another one up, I’m just going to rip it down,’ he sneered.
The next thing he saw was the back of a woman’s head. Dark, travel-messy ponytail. Dwarfed by the men she was facing but not backing down.
And all too familiar.
Little Miss Hostile. Winning friends and influencing people—as usual.
‘This is a public noticeboard,’ she asserted up at the human mountain, foolishly undeterred by his size.
‘For Norseman residents,’ he spat. ‘Not for blow-ins from the east.’
‘Public,’ she challenged. ‘Do I need to spell it out for you?’
Wow. Someone really needed to give her some basic training in conflict resolution. The guy was clearly a xenophobe and drunk. Calling him stupid in front of a crowd full of locals wasn’t the fastest way out of her predicament.
She shoved past him and used a staple gun to pin up another flier.
He’d seen the same poster peppering posts and walls in Madura, Cocklebiddy and Balladonia. Every point along the remote desert highway that could conceivably hold a person. And a sign. Crisp and new against all the bleached, frayed ones from years past.
‘Stop!’
Yeah, that guy wasn’t going to stop. And now the McTanked Twins were also getting in on the act.
Goddammit.
Marshall pushed out into the centre of the circle. He raised his voice the way he used to in office meetings when they became unruly. Calm but intractable. ‘Okay, show’s over, people.’
The crowd turned their attention to him, like a bunch of cattle. So did the three drunks. But they weren’t so intoxicated they didn’t pause at the sight of his beard and tattoos. Just for a moment.
The moment he needed.
‘Howzabout we find somewhere else for those?’ he suggested straight to Little Miss Hostile, neatly relieving her of the pile of posters with one hand and the staple gun with his other. ‘There are probably better locations in town.’
She spun around and glared at him in the heartbeat before she recognised him. ‘Give me those.’
He ignored her and spoke to the crowd. ‘All done, people. Let’s get moving.’
They parted for him as he pushed back through, his hands full of her property. She had little choice but to pursue him.
‘Those are mine!’
‘Let’s have this conversation around the corner,’ he gritted back and down towards her.
But just as they’d cleared the crowd, the big guy couldn’t help himself.
‘Maybe he’s gone missing to get away from you!’ he called.
A shocked gasp covered the sound of small female feet pivoting on the pavement and she marched straight back towards the jeering threesome.
Marshall shoved the papers under his arm and sprinted after her, catching her just before she re-entered the eye of the storm. All three men had lined up in it, ready. Eager. He curled his arms around her and dragged her back, off her feet, and barked just one word in her ear.
‘Don’t!’
She twisted and lurched and swore the whole way but he didn’t loosen his hold until the crowd and the jeering laughter of the drunks were well behind them.
‘Put me down,’ she struggled. ‘Ass!’
‘The only ass around here is the one I just saved.’
‘I’ve dealt with rednecks before.’
‘Yeah, you were doing a bang-up job.’
‘I have every right to put my posters up.’
‘No argument. But you could have just walked away and then come back and done it in ten minutes when the drunks were gone.’
‘But there were thirty people there.’
‘None of whom were making much of an effort to help you.’ In case she hadn’t noticed.
‘I didn’t want their help,’ she spat, spinning back to face him. ‘I wanted their attention.’
What was this—some kind of performance art thing? ‘Come again?’
‘Thirty people would have read my poster, remembered it. The same people that probably would have passed it by without