Page 132

She leaned in to kiss him and wondered if the boy she’d met so long ago had dreamed of kissing a girl in this tree. It made her smile. ‘Tom, I doubt you’ll ever appreciate how much confidence you give me, but you do it in a way that makes me feel strong without having to be brusque or quite as prickly as perhaps I used to be. What’s more, I haven’t had support or affection of this kind since my mother died.’

‘Ditto,’ Tom said and stopped her saying any more by kissing her again.

They heard a foghorn sound in the distance.

‘Ah, there it is!’ Tom said, leaping easily down from the branch and landing lightly on the creek bed in such familiar fashion that Fleur knew he’d jumped from this branch many dozens of times. ‘Come on, let me help you down.’

‘I’m pregnant, not an invalid.’

He ignored her remark and showed her where to put her feet to clamber back down.

‘I wanted to jump.’

‘That takes years of practice,’ he said in a teasing tone, grabbing her hand and twirling her around the lower reaches of the tree and down to the red earth.

Fleur gave a soft gasp of awe and Tom followed her gaze to where the highest branches were hosting feathered visitors.

‘Galahs,’ he said.

‘Do you know I’ve never seen one before?’

‘You’re kidding, right?’

She shook her head. ‘They really are very bright pink, aren’t they? Beautiful.’ She sighed.

‘Noisy, too,’ he admitted. ‘Well, if they impress you, let’s hope you see a Mallee ringneck – now there’s a parrot to stare at. He’s turquoise and orange, yellow and green, he’s got violet and chocolate . . . and across his beak is a red stripe with a lemon scarf around his neck.’

She looked back at him with a look of mistrust.

‘I tell no lie, Fleur. Honest. They really are beautiful.’

‘Well, find me one!’ she demanded.

He laughed. ‘At night we get geckos, and you’ll find skinks scuttling around everywhere. There’s even a legless lizard that will convince you it’s a snake and send you hurtling in the other direction.’

She took his hand. ‘Tom, I’m terrified of snakes.’

‘Have you seen one?’

‘Only at the zoo.’

‘That was a python. Look, the snakes out here are some of the most venomous in the world, but they’re pretty shy. We make a lot of noise just walking on the land and they can feel us coming and they take off.’

‘Feel us?’

‘Our footsteps vibrate across the earth.’

She laughed, clapping her hands. ‘Brilliant! And you’re not scared?’

‘I’m respectful and wary of them. You learn to be cautious around wood piles or dark corners – or boots that have been left too long somewhere.’ He grinned. ‘I’ve heard all the stories but if we’re careful, we don’t have to fear them . . . they fear us more.’

‘No, I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you. It’s not like you can accidentally tread on one and offer up an apology.’

He laughed aloud. ‘Well, that’s true. So out here you learn how to live around all the dangers and take the right precautions.’

She gave another shuddering groan. ‘I think you have to grow up around it.’

‘Like you in a mortuary, I guess. What you do would frighten a lot of people.’