Red Dirt Heart 04 - Red Dirt Heart 4 (17 page)

“Well, I dunno about insecure,” I answered. “But I wanted something more binding, I guess. So I asked. And you said yes.”

“I did.”

“And that was for me what me coming back here was to you,” I explained poorly. “It was some affirmation. It was all I needed, just to hear you say you’d marry me if you could.”

“I would.”

“I know.”

“So why did you think I was sending you back to Texas by yourself?”

I laughed. “Because there was just one ticket!”

He smiled down at me, then kissed me softly. “There’ll never be just one ticket, Trav. Not anymore.”

“Promise.”

“I promise,” he said with such conviction it made my heart thump. He kissed me again and smiled. “From this day forward, for as long as we both shall live.”

I took his face in my hands and pulled his lips to mine, kissing him deeply. I knew he was only joking with the fake wedding vows, but sweet mother of God, they tasted good on his tongue.

He pulled back from the kiss. “I want to marry you,” he said breathily.

My heart thundered in my chest. “I want you to be my husband.”

He smiled shyly, ducking his gaze from mine. “That sounds weird.”

I put my finger to his chin and made him look at me. “Will you be my husband, Charlie?”

He swallowed hard, but he nodded. “Yes.” Then he made a pained face like he didn’t want to say something, but with his spill-all policy he’d been working on these last two years, he said it anyway. “I don’t know when, though. And I hope that’s good enough for you.”

“Charlie, you saying yes was good enough for me. I told you that.”

His eyes narrowed. “So you don’t wanna actually get married? You just wanna stay engaged forever?”

I snorted at this impossible man. “Of course I do. I’d be happy to go home right now and have George officiate some kind of ceremony.”

Charlie smiled. “George?”

“Well, he’s the wisest, most formal of us all. He could be our minister.” I leaned up off the rock and kissed him. “I mean it when I said it doesn’t have to be anything official or grand. Just someone saying ‘Do you, Charlie, take Travis’ or whatever it is they say.”

Charlie gave me a troubled smile and dragged himself off me. He sat on the rock, looking more unsure than I’d ever seen him. “Charlie?”

His eyes flashed to mine. He looked… scared? “I might have got you something else.” He dragged his backpack over. His hands fumbled a bit, like he was nervous. “And I was thinkin’ maybe…” He shook his head and kind of laughed at himself.

“You were thinking what, Charlie?” I asked. “You didn’t need to get me anything else. Seriously. A trip for us to see my folks is more than enough. It’s too much actually.”

He pulled a small velvet pouch out of his bag. “Well, this was something I saw online and I thought it was pretty cool. I was just gonna give it to you as a present, but maybe we could use it for something else.” He swallowed hard and let out a shaky breath. He was really nervous.

“Charlie, what is it?”

He swallowed again as though his mouth had gone dry. “If you said you don’t need any official ceremony or nothin’, then maybe we could get married right now.”

I blinked. Married right now? I looked around at the desert below the lagoon; the sun was almost set and it was peaceful and perfect, but it was just us. There literally wasn’t another soul for miles.

“Um…”

“You don’t have to,” he added quickly. “It was just a thought. You said you didn’t need anything official, and I had these, and I thought… Well, it was stupid and I shouldn’t have said anything.” He pulled away, but I grabbed his arm.

“Charlie?”

He looked at me then, fear and uncertainty I hadn’t seen for a long time in his eyes. “It’s okay, Trav.” He shook his head. “You don’t have to say anything.”

I held my hand out. “Show me what’s in the pouch.”

He looked at the velvet pouch like he forgot he was holding it. He hesitated, but eventually handed it over. I pulled the drawstrings apart and tipped the contents into my hand. It was two necklaces, and each had a dime-sized pendant on it. Then I looked closer and realised what they were, and I gasped.

“They’re specially made,” he said quietly. “The Craig Ranch branding insignia on one side, Sutton Station branding insignia on the other. I thought they’d suit us better because we can’t really wear wedding rings with the work we do. I’ve seen too many men with missing fingers because their wedding ring got caught on something, and then I saw these and thought they were pretty cool, and the more I thought about them, the more I thought we could have these as our wedding rings instead, if you know what I mean.” He was doing his nervous-rambling thing. “But if you think they’re stupid, just say so. I mean, they were kinda expensive but that doesn’t mean we need to use ’em and would you please say something, anything, even just to tell me to shut up.”

I looked at him through blurry eyes, and his eyes widened when he saw the tears in mine. “Oh jeez, Trav, if you really don’t like ’em, that’s okay. I probably shoulda asked instead of just assuming—”

I shook my head and he stopped talking. “Charlie, they’re perfect,” I said, blinking back my tears. My voice was thick. “I couldn’t have picked anything more perfect. I love it.”

He grinned with a rush of breath. “Really?”

I stood up and pulled Charlie to his feet. Looking around, the water shimmered orange and blue from the setting sun, and the sky was a whole palette of oranges, blues and purples. The air was cool and clean, the desert as far as the eye could see was flat and vast. It was so perfect. Just like the man next to me.

I handed him one of the necklaces and took his free hand with mine. “You ready?”

He nodded. “As I’ll ever be.”

Well, here went nothing. I took another deep breath and cleared my mind, thinking only of what marriage meant to me.

“Charlie, I don’t need a church or a minister to make my promise to you valid. I don’t need a piece of paper, and I don’t need witnesses to make this official. I don’t need anything but you.” I took a deep breath. “Charlie Sutton, I promise to you that I will love and honour you, as your husband, for all days.”

He gave me a teary smile. “I ain’t as good with words as you,” he said. “I can’t quote a movie or anything—”

“Because there’s no wedding scene in
Die Hard
.”

Charlie snorted. “Exactly.” He let out a deep breath and started again. He looked out over the desert again, like it was a cue card or something. “It’s kinda fitting that this desert, that this lagoon—one of my favourite places in the world—is the only witness to this. Travis, I’m not poetic or romantic, and God knows I live out here in the middle of nowhere. It ain’t an easy life, Trav, but I promise you this: with all that I am, I’m yours.”

He took his hand from mine and fiddled with the clasp with his blunt fingernails. He finally got the clasp open and put the necklace on me. The silver-crested pendant sat where my collarbones met. I did the same with the necklace I was holding for him, and when I was done, he quickly took both my hands.

“Trav, will you promise to kick me in the pants if I ever take you for granted?”

“I will.”

“Do you promise to tell me to pull my head in when I’m moody and bein’ a cranky bastard?”

“I do.”

He grinned at me.

“Charlie, will you promise to supply coffee beans forever? And even order in some bagels every now and again?”

He chuckled. “I will.”

“Do you promise me we can watch gridiron and baseball together? And you won’t complain or call it stupid, for as long as we both shall live?”

He laughed, and the sound rang out over the desert. “I do.”

“Then I now call us husband and husband.”

Charlie’s eyes watered, and he touched the pendant around my neck. “Sutton and Craig, ’til death do us part.”

I crushed my mouth to his, kissing him deeply.

He pulled out the bed-roll and laid it out in the middle of the still-burning candles, then we lay down, him settling his weight on top of me.

Surrounded by nothing but the desert, fading sunlight and flickering candles, we made love. His promise to me of forever was sworn to me with his body, with his heart.

And with the desert as my witness, I swore forever to him as well.

Texas bound.

Charlie on a plane for long periods of time was never going to end well. He just couldn’t sit still for that long in such a confined space. He was fine for the first few hours, but then boredom set in, and a bored Charlie is the worst.

He started to fidget and fuss. The seat was uncomfortable, then there was nothing worth watching, he didn’t want to read, he wasn’t tired enough to sleep, he wasn’t hungry, he was sick of sitting down, and no, Travis, he didn’t want to walk up and down the aisle looking at people like some sicko perv.

I laughed at him. “I told you it was boring.”

“You didn’t say it was this boring.”

“Have you got some paperwork to do or some data collating on sales to read through? Or some stats for Greg and Allan? I told you to bring something.”

“I thought you were joking.”

I riffled through my carry-on and pulled out one of Ma’s crossword books. “Here. Do one of those.”

“Did you steal Ma’s book?”

“She told me to take it.”

He frowned but took the puzzle book like a petulant child. And he was quiet for all of two minutes. “What’s a seven-letter word for
escarpment
?” He tapped the pen on the page. “Or a five-letter word for
review
? No, wait, what the hell is
kwinn-oh-a
?”

“What?”

“
Kwinn oh a
, with a
q
. What the hell kind of word is that?” Charlie made a face that was part confused and part peeved-off. He looked at the front of the crossword booklet. “Is this one of those stupid cryptic crossword books?”

Oh dear Lord.

“Let me have a look,” I said, leaning over to read the word. “You mean
quinoa
?”

“It’s not spelled
keen-wa
, Travis,” he said, like it was my fault for inventing a stupid word.

I took a deep so-help-me-God breath. “It’s a seed or a grain. How many letters?”

“Five.”

“Try
grain
. Though that’s not technically correct. It’s a grain crop, but the edible part is the seed. But we won’t begrudge the crossword people for not having a degree in agronomy.”

Charlie chuckled. “No. No we won’t.” He tapped his pen again. “Hey, what’s a one-two—” He started counting in his head. “—eleven-letter word for
photogenic
?”

“
Picturesque
.”

Charlie stared at me. “Are you like some closet crossword guru or something?”

I snorted. “Yep, that’s me. I’m a crossword fanatic. I get up when everyone else is sleeping and do them. I can’t get enough of them.”

Charlie made a snooty face. “Oh look. A six-letter word for
smartarse
. Starts with a
T
and ends with
ravis
.”

I laughed, and the lady in front of us turned around and smiled. At least someone else was amused.

“We should have gone out last night,” I told him. “At least you’d be hung-over and sleeping right now.”

“I wanted to go out,” he whisper-shouted. “You were the one who kept saying no.”

“Yeah, because I didn’t want to go to all your old stomping grounds in Sydney so you could gloat about your conquests and what you did and where.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” he said softly. “And anyway, we’re heading to your old stomping ground.” He seemed to think about that for a second. “Any exes I should know about? Do I need to defend your honour?”

“If by defending my honour, you mean punching in the face, then no.”

He snorted. “I wouldn’t punch them in the face. Well,” he amended, “not without good reason. If someone tries to woo you back—”

“Woo?” I interrupted. “Who the hell says woo anymore?”

“People still say it. It’s a word people use.”

“Not people of this century,” I corrected. “Or the last. I think it went out of fashion with duelling, Charlie.”

He grinned. “Good. If someone tries to woo you, I shall challenge them to a duel.” He stretched out his legs and shifted in his seat. “Though it’d be quicker and a whole lot less messy if you’d just let me punch them in the face.”

“You’re not punching anyone or duelling anyone,” I said with a sigh. “Maybe Michael might challenge us to a game of backyard football or baseball.”

“Playing footy with your brother is fine. I can teach him proper footy and not that poxy game you play.”

I laughed. “You’re gonna be the foreigner this time, Charlie. Not me. We play the right kind of football, we have baseball bats, not those stupid flat-edged cricket bats, and we drive on the right side of the street.” I smiled at him. “You’ll be the one with the accent and have people making fun of you instead of it all being on me.”

“We’ve never made fun of you!”

I think my mouth fell open. Then I laughed incredulously. “I spent the first twelve months being called The Yank. And you make fun of the words I say all the time.”

“Because some of them are wrong,” he said flatly. “Like
cookie
and
sidewalk
and
fixin’-to
and
y’all
.”

I glared at him. “And
G’day, mate
and
fair dinkum
are what, exactly?”

“Awesome things to say.”

I sighed. “I swear to the Lord above. I would pay someone a hundred bucks right now to download a Bruce Willis movie just to shut you up.”

“Any Bruce Willis movie?” he asked. “Not that Hawk one. Just his action movies. You know that.”

“Charlie, next time we fly back to the States, we’re paying extra for business class. And possibly separate seats.”

He sighed and went to looking out the window. He was quiet for too long.

“Charlie, what’s really wrong?”

He kept his face turned to the window. “What if they don’t like me?”

“Who?”

“Your parents. Or your brother and sisters… Oh God. What if none of them like me?”

Well, this was new.

I don’t know why I was surprised. In hindsight, I probably should have expected this, but this-is-who-I-am Charlie had been in full confident flight for so long, I’d almost forgotten about self-doubting Charlie.

“Charlie,” I said softly, “they’re gonna love you. How can they not?”

He shrugged and stared at the seat in front of him, deliberately avoiding eye contact with me. “I dunno. I’m the reason you’re not there.”

“Charlie, look at me.” I waited until his eyes met mine. “They’ll love you. Believe me, they already do.”

He cringed. “I don’t do very well in crowds or with strangers and I want them to like me. I tend to say stupid things and what if I say something that offends them or makes them think I’m an idiot—”

“Charlie?” I tried to interrupt him.

“Trav, I’ve never met anyone’s parents before. Hell, I barely even met mine, and I really need your parents to like me.”

“Charlie, listen to me,” I said a little louder this time. “They’re gonna love you. And you know what? It doesn’t matter if they don’t, because I choose you, not them.”

His eyes widened. “I won’t ever make you choose.”

I smiled and shook my head. “And my family wouldn’t make me choose either, Charlie. Anyway—” I sighed. “—I think the fact that I live in the middle of the Outback is proof enough of who I’d choose.”

He made a face and went back to staring out the window. I reached over and pulled on his arm so I could take his hand. If words weren’t gonna convince him—and knowing Charlie, right now they weren’t gonna come close—then hand-holding would have to do.

A little later, he was asleep.

* * * *

It was funny to watch Charlie disembark the plane and enter the terminal. I could tell he was nervous as hell, but it made me smile every time he’d tip his hat at everyone who made eye contact with him. He even said the occasional “G’day.”

He couldn’t have been more
Crocodile Dundee
if he tried. And he wasn’t even trying. He was just being Charlie. A fish-out-of-water Charlie. A nervous-as-hell, so-far-from-home kind of Charlie.

And being nervous was fine. Except when going through customs.

I stood behind him in line watching as Charlie put his carry-on backpack on the counter, and the uniformed customs officer looked him up and down. She was about forty years old with her dark hair pulled back tight and a no-nonsense set to her dark eyes. She read over his passport and declaration form and looked at him again. “Can you take your hat off, sir.”

It wasn’t really a question. Charlie did as she ordered and put it on the counter with his bag. She studied the hole-riddled, out-of-shape, stained Akubra for a long second, and I wondered briefly if she was going to either poke it or have it quarantined.

He ran his hand through his hair and, nodding toward his hat, gave her a nervous smile. “It’s had a rough life.”

She ignored him. “How long are you staying in the United States?”

“Um, two weeks.”

“Reason for your visit?”

“Um, well, a holiday, I guess,” he said, licking his lips.

“You guess or you know?”

“Well, it’s not a guess, that was the wrong word, sorry. I know it’s a holiday, but I’m meeting the… well, the in-laws, I guess you’d call ’em.” He was doing his nervous can’t-shut-up thing. “I’m meeting the in-laws for the first time and I’m not sure that qualifies as a holiday because I’m pretty sure they’re not gonna like me and I’m thinking they’re on the other side of that wall.” He nodded to the exit where other travellers were leaving through. “Which means I’m gonna be meeting them any minute now and to be honest with you, ma’am, it’s kinda scaring me a bit.” His accent sounded so much more broad in the company of other Texans.

The woman tried not to smile. “Is that right?”

He swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah. I mean I’ve spoken to them on Skype and whatnot, but it’s not the same as meeting them.”

I couldn’t help myself. I had to say something. “Charlie, you’ll do just fine.”

His eyes, and those of the customs officer, shot to mine. “You have to say that,” Charlie said. “And it’s fine for you, Trav. They already love you.”

The woman now eyed me cautiously, and I wondered if I’d overstepped some customs and border protection protocol by speaking to someone she was interviewing. She turned back to Charlie. “Do you know this man?”

“Well, yes,” Charlie answered. “It’s his parents I’m meeting. He’s my… that’s my Travis.”

I smiled at his inability to say
boyfriend
or
de facto
or, God forbid,
partner
. I’d never tell him, but I actually loved the way he called me
his Travis.
“We’re coming home to spend Thanksgiving with my parents.”

The customs officer looked back at Charlie. “Why didn’t you just say that?”

Charlie swallowed hard again. “I’m coming here to spend Thanksgiving with his parents, who I’m pretty sure are gonna hate me.”

This time the lady smiled a little more genuinely. “First time in the United States?”

Charlie nodded. “First time anywhere.”

She smiled as though she’d thought as much. She read through his paperwork, checked his bag and told him to enjoy his stay. She processed me a little quicker, asking general questions about where I was from, where I’d been and what I was doing in Australia.

“I call Australia home now,” I said. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s always nice to come back here, but my life is over there now.”

She stamped my papers, smiled and told me to have a great Thanksgiving.

I collected my bags and walked over to a waiting Charlie. He tried to smile, but it was pretty clear he was worried. I put my bag down and squeezed his hand, then looked at the doors we were about to walk through. “You ready?”

“Yes.”

“And by yes, you mean not at all.”

“Exactly.”

It was hard to be sympathetic when I knew his worries were unfounded. He was so nervous, so concerned that my parents and siblings wouldn’t like him when I knew the opposite to be true.

I couldn’t wait to introduce them. I wanted them to finally meet him, because I knew—I knew in my bones—that they’d love him. And I wanted my mom to see why I chose to live on the other side of the world.

“Come on,” I said, picking up my bags. He didn’t really seem to move at all, so I juggled my bags into one arm and grabbed his hand with my other. “Come on. Let’s get it over with.”

When I looked back, the customs lady at the counter we’d gone through was watching us with a smile.

We walked through the doors and headed down the corridor to the greeting area. It was a large white open space, filled with hundreds of people hugging and smiling. It was crowded, too crowded, and I couldn’t see my mom or dad anywhere.