Man Drought (4 page)

‘I had such a great night downstairs. People here are all so welcoming. I hope you’re not worrying about me, because I know I’m going to be happy here.’

She leaned her head against the pillow, tucked her hands under her cheek and chattered on about some of the people she’d met, Charlie’s idea of a slab party to renovate the place, the new staff who were arriving soon, absolutely everything that came into her head. She imagined Jamie chuckling to himself from wherever he was right now. He’d always said she talked too much, but the gleam in his eye whenever he’d said it had told her he hadn’t minded one little bit.

Eventually, when she’d exhausted the day’s activities, she blew him a kiss and turned off the light. In the dark she stretched her legs diagonally across the bed – one of many tricks she tried to make it feel less empty. Her eyes squeezed tightly shut, Imogen imagined Jamie snuggling up to her, wrapping his strong, warm arms around her and kissing that little spot just beneath her ear. She didn’t have to imagine the sparks his lips would ignite because she dreamed of it every night.

She yawned.

Not long now.

When she slept, he was still alive.

Imogen woke early the next morning and pulled on her running shorts, a t-shirt and sneakers.

She hadn’t exercised properly since before Jamie died. Truth be told, her health had been the least of her worries, but recently she’d noticed her love handles were feeling extra lovey and her favourite jeans didn’t sit right on her hips. She’d hoped all the packing and carrying of boxes might have been enough of a workout, but apparently it didn’t negate the comfort-eating. It was time to take drastic measures.

Going on a run would also give her the opportunity to do a proper reconnaissance of the town. Apart from a couple of quick trips to the general store, she’d barely set foot outside the pub since arriving.

After double-knotting her shoelaces, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, picking up her keys and slipping them into a pocket, she blew a kiss to the Jamie photo that had the centre spot
on her new hall table. If he’d still been around, no way would she have been getting fat. They’d played tennis twice a week in the summer and squash in the winter, not to mention their frequent horizontal activities that burned as many calories as a jog around the block. Apparently.

She paused a moment and pressed her hand against her chest, hoping to ease the pang that erupted at thoughts of Jamie and sex. Although her red-hot dreams were good, they didn’t satisfy her like the real thing, and she had to admit her girly bits were getting twitchy. That presented a dilemma, for she’d never seen the appeal of casual sex, and she certainly didn’t plan on getting into a relationship.

As seedy as it made her feel, she decided that next time they talked, she would ask Jenna’s advice about buying a vibrator. Jenna openly and proudly knew about such things.

That decision made, Imogen took the stairs out of her apartment. When she stepped into the early morning air she breathed in deeply, smiling at the fresh country scent. This was why she’d moved so far away from the city – well, one of many reasons. Fresh air and no pollution – noise or otherwise.

She began to run, turning right out of the pub grounds and onto the main street. The Majestic sat on the corner, just before the sign directing motorists out of town and on their way to Southern Cross.

Next door to the pub stood a couple of abandoned shops. One looked to have been a dress shop in times when there were enough women in town to warrant one, and the other, if the rumours were to be believed, was once a brothel. With the lack of females in Gibson’s Find, some of her patrons probably wished it was still in operation. There was no graffiti like you’d see on vacant shops in the city, only weeds forcing themselves up through cracks in the pavement out front. The emptiness was echoed in Imogen’s heart.
She was glad to move past the deserted strip to the busier end of the street.

Though it was wide enough for about four trucks to drive parallel to each other, she’d rarely seen more than two cars drive down the main street at the same time. Shops were scattered along one side of the road, and the other was home to an old train station and semi-landscaped bushland dotted with metal-art statues made by locals long ago. On the shop side there was a post office; a cafe that never appeared to have more than two customers at a time; a Holden dealership that looked like it only had three cars for sale; a hardware and farm supplies shed; and a general store with an agency for Bendigo Bank.

The street was empty and, due to the early hour, all the shops were currently closed. Although the wind made the temperature pleasant, a hint of promised warmth already hung in the air. Looked like it’d be another forty-degree scorcher. The last couple of days, her forehead had become a permanent waterfall of sweat, and her shirts were getting stains under her arms and at the back of her neck. Not a good look for the woman in charge.

‘Morning.’

She looked round from where she’d been reading the magazine billboards outside the general store and smiled at the owner of the voice. She recognised him as one of the men who’d ribbed Charlie about his mistake that day she’d brought her friends to the pub. He’d been there again last night, but they hadn’t been formally introduced. Blonde hair, medium height and reasonably good-looking, she’d put him in his late thirties. His football shorts, sneakers and a t-shirt soaked in sweat told her he’d been exercising as well.

‘A group of us get together down on the oval three mornings a week for boot camp, if you’re interested,’ he said, his grin growing wider. ‘I’m Guy, by the way.’ He held out his hand but seemed to
think better of it at the last minute, pulling it back and wiping his palm against his t-shirt.

She smiled back. ‘Imogen. And thanks. I’ll think about it.’ She took a sip from her water bottle, itching to ask him if any women attended. It wasn’t that she minded being one of very few women, not exactly, but she didn’t think she’d be comfortable if she were the
only
one.

‘Great. Well, I’ll see ya round.’ Guy waved and jogged across the street.

She read another headline before continuing down the street, walking briskly at first and then starting into a run. At the end of the main street, which wasn’t very long, she turned right into the grid of streets that formed the majority of the Gibson’s Find township.

As she lengthened her paces, pounding the uneven and cracked pathways, she studied the houses on either side of the road. What struck her as very different from Perth was the mishmash of architecture. Whereas in the city you had a suburb of flash houses or a suburb of shabby ones, here the best and biggest house in the street might be alongside one that looked as if it needed a demolition order.

Jamie would have had a feast in a town like this. So many old places with potential to be turned into works of art. And she’d die to get her thumbs into some of the gardens, or lack thereof. It didn’t appear that anyone in Gibson’s Find had a green bone in their body. Most of the front yards were desolate and decidedly lacking in colour. No cute gnomes or fairy statues, never mind flowers.

She jogged a little further, pleasantly surprised when she came upon a cute little shack with an abundance of colourful flowers. A middle-aged woman stood in the garden, wielding a hose like she barely had control over the thing. She spied Imogen and waved, hose and all. An icy spray of water fell over Imogen and she jumped back, but not before the front of her top got splashed.

‘I’m so sorry,’ gushed the woman, screwing off the water, dumping the hose on the grass and rushing forward to greet Imogen over a pristinely kept hedge. ‘Can I get you a towel?’

‘No, I’m fine.’ Imogen pulled the rubber band from her ponytail and shook out her hair. This woman was only the third she’d met in town – Cathy being the first, and the old woman who seemed to sit permanently behind the counter at the general store the second. Granted, she’d barely left the pub, but still, she was beginning to believe the rumours that Gibson’s Find was suffering a veritable drought of females. ‘No harm done.’

‘I’m Karen Davies,’ the woman announced as Imogen re-scooped her hair into a ponytail. ‘I’m so sorry we haven’t met yet, but I work for you. Great way to meet your boss, isn’t it?’

‘Karen, pleased to meet you.’ Imogen grinned at the warmth and embarrassment in the older woman’s voice. It went perfectly hand in hand with her appearance. She was round but not obese – her mother would say ‘cuddly’. Karen’s hair was cropped short around her chin in a practical style and streaked with grey as if she were happy to age gracefully. ‘Don’t worry about the water. I was hot anyway. How are you feeling?’

Karen had been sick with tonsillitis and therefore hadn’t been around yesterday or the day Imogen had arrived, so this was the first time they’d met.

‘Much better,’ Karen replied with a nod. ‘I’m desperate to get back to work but the doc says I need another couple of days’ rest. Don’t tell her you saw me exerting myself.’

Imogen laughed. ‘I won’t. But don’t overdo it. We’ll chat when you’re completely better.’

With a quick wave Imogen resumed jogging down the street. If she kept getting stopped by friendly locals she wasn’t going to work up much of a sweat at all.

The next few houses were nothing to write home about, in fact
some of them looked unoccupied. She was running, lost in her own thoughts and not looking out for traffic when a dirt-covered ute reversed rather quickly out of the driveway in front of her.

She jumped back and grabbed onto a nearby letterbox to stop herself from falling. The ute stopped. A curse sounded inside, and then a dark-haired head popped out the driver’s side window.

Her tummy flipped in a traitorous manner. Gibson Black. Just her luck.

‘You should be careful how you’re driving,’ she said before she could think better of it.

He raised his eyebrows, amusement dancing at the corners of his illegally luscious lips as recognition dawned in his eyes. ‘And you should be more traffic-conscious when you’re running.’

She folded her arms across her chest, noticing it was heaving and that he wasn’t being surreptitious about looking. Soaked through from Karen’s hose, her white top was now no doubt see-through. Her black running shorts felt ridiculously short and tight and the neck of the water bottle dug into her side, but she refused to look perturbed. ‘You’re the first bit of traffic I’ve seen all morning. And anyway, this here’s the footpath.’

He shrugged slowly as if he really didn’t have the time or inclination to debate with her. ‘Maybe you’re right, but you’re the first jogger I’ve seen in town in about …’ He paused as if thinking this through. ‘In forever. You took me by surprise.’

She bit her lip, thinking this was about the closest to an apology she was ever going to get from him.

‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ She looked past him to the dull-grey fibro house – neater than many of the other houses in the street, but still without much of a garden.

Immediately, she wished she hadn’t asked. What right did she have to give him the third degree? Maybe he’d stayed over at his girlfriend’s house. There weren’t many women in town, but she’d
bet money on the fact that if he wanted every one of those few, he’d have them. She tried to ignore the ridiculous resentment that thought invoked. Softening her voice, she added, ‘I thought you lived on the family farm.’

He smiled. Well, it was more of a smirk, but his lips definitely lifted. And if his scowl was scandalously sexy, his smile was lethal. Its effects ricocheted right down to her toenails.

‘Have you been making enquiries about me?’ he asked, in a tone that said he was good-looking and knew it.

She narrowed her eyes and glared. ‘No.’ She hated that she sounded so aggro, so childish in her reply, probably inflating his ego to mammoth proportions. ‘Charlie mentioned it. For some reason, he can’t talk enough about you.’

He shrugged and smiled like this amused him as he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘That I do, and I’d best be getting back there.’

‘Where?’

He raised one eyebrow and looked at her like she had a flashing Idiot sign on her head. ‘My farm.’

‘Oh, right.’ No wonder he questioned her ability to run the pub on her own. ‘Cool.’

Cool
? Oh Lord. Why couldn’t she act normal around this jerk?

‘Do you mind stepping back?’ He nodded towards the pavement behind her. ‘I’m a very careful driver and I don’t want any incidents with joggers on my record.’

Damn the man, he was mocking her. She had a good mind to slam her fist through his open window and punch his pretty nose, except she wasn’t a violent person. Not usually. ‘Sure,’ she said instead, gritting her teeth as she took a few steps back. Hell, she should have turned and sprinted the other way, because being in his poisoning presence wasn’t doing her any favours. The longer she stood in front of him, practically naked in her wet running clothes, the more stupid she felt.

‘Well, I guess I’ll see you round,’ he said, lifting his hand in a quick goodbye.

‘I guess so.’ Thinking she hoped not, Imogen mimicked his wave, forgetting that in doing so she was uncovering her wet t-shirt in all its see-through glory. His gaze fell to her chest. All of a sudden her sports bra felt unbelievably tight and wicked sensations danced low in her belly. Sensations she’d thought had been buried with Jamie. Before she could react, he quickly looked away, pressed his foot against the accelerator and all but hooned out of the driveway.

‘Oh Lord.’ She wished there were a streetlight nearby so she could lean her heavy head against it. Was there something in the water here? It was as if the moment she’d driven past the Welcome To Gibson’s Find sign at the edge of the shire, her libido had been awakened from very long and deep slumber. Had to be the fact she hadn’t had sex in almost two and a half years. No other reason at all.

Definitely not.

Unable to help herself, she glanced up and scrutinised the house he’d come from. As she looked for any signs of female life, she told herself she didn’t actually care but was merely interested if there was a woman around strong enough to put up with the infuriating Gibson Black.

If so, that woman deserved a medal.

Gibson drove through the large iron entrance gates to Roseglen, his family’s 20,000-acre sheep and crop farm, and wished it were seeding or harvest time. As a sole operator – with Charlie’s help, when he felt like it, and contracted workers in the busy times – there was always work to do on the farm, but February was his quietest time. He needed to bait, mothball and service the harvester
before stowing it away until next season, and there were always fences to fix, other engines to service, stock to feed, water to check and general upkeep. But unfortunately today there was nothing that he really needed to get his teeth stuck into, which – in his current agitated state – was a bad thing.

Not usually the type of bloke to look for trouble, this morning, as he drove down the gravel drive, past the deserted shearing shed, silos, rusty old windmill and hay shed towards the house, he shifted in his seat, half hoping to spot a leaky pipe or a stray sheep in the wrong paddock. The boardies that had been loose when he’d pulled them on this morning now cut into his thighs, and he was glad no one was around to see Imogen’s effect on him. The image of her in those tiny, blessedly tight running shorts and that t-shirt soaked with sweat from running her shapely little legs crazy, not to mention her smart mouth, had imprinted itself on his mind. It refused to leave, no matter how many unsexual images he’d tried to conjure on the ten-minute drive from town.