‘You and Kent. A car. A travel diary. The Red Centre. The true outback. Journalism at its most organic.’
Sadie gave Tabitha a look that suggested she was probably also certifiable. ‘But that will take days!’
‘Let me guess,’ Kent drawled, amused by her horrified demeanour. ‘City girl, right?’
Sadie looked back at him. ‘No,’ she denied, despite the fact that she was an urban creature to her core. Fast lane, city lights, cocktail bars and foreign film festivals.
‘I just get really, really car sick.’ It sounded so lame when she said it out loud but she doubted the great Kent Nelson would tolerate stopping every two minutes so she could hurl up her stomach contents.
Kent’s jaw tightened again. Great. Three days in a car with a city chick and her weak constitution.
It just kept getting better.
‘I guess that’s why they invented motion sickness medication,’ he said woodenly.
Sadie shook her head vigorously. ‘Oh, trust me, you do not want to be around me when I’m on that. I get totally trippy. It is not pretty.’
Kent raised an eyebrow. Vomiting or tripping. Sounded like a trip forged in hell.
Maybe another place, another time in his life he would have been more than happy to see Little-Miss-Curvy getting trippy. But now just the thought was plain annoying.
‘Thanks for the heads up,’ he said.
‘This could be a great opportunity for you, Sadie,’ Tabitha interjected. ‘Two feature stories for the price of one. Of course, if you don’t think you’re up to it we can always find someone else...’
Sadie wanted to stamp her foot at the not-so-subtle ultimatum. But she didn’t. Tabitha was right. It was a gift. How was her boss to know about Sadie’s nervousness at facing her ex-lover again? Or that when she did, she wanted to look a million dollars, not like a wrung-out dish mop?
At least a gruelling car journey would help the crash diet she’d put herself on since finding out about this opportunity two days ago. The last time she’d seen Leo, she’d been thin, her curves straitjacketed by a strict eating regime.
Not naturally svelte, she had taken a while to slim down when they’d first started their relationship. But Leo’s love and encouragement had been a fantastic incentive. Every time he’d raved about the symmetry of her prominent collar, wrist and hipbones, or the way the milkiness of her skin stretched sparingly over the hard surfaces beneath, she’d felt accomplished.
He used to stroke her hair as it fell in between the angles of her bony scapulas and tell her it looked like rippling satin flowing between a sculpted valley. That her creamy skin was the perfect foil.
The only thing curvy about her then had been her breasts. And, no matter how much Leo had lamented them, not even rigid dieting had had an effect on their size. He’d offered to pay for a reduction and she’d been thrilled at the suggestion. Thrilled that the brilliant artist had seen something special in her body. Seen it as a work of art, an empty canvas.
Thrilled that she’d become his muse, revelling in his almost obsessive need to paint her.
She was excruciatingly aware now she was not the woman he had sent away. That he had loved.
And she had a lot to prove.
So there was one upside to this proposed nightmare road trip. Between starvation and puking up constantly she could lose a stone or two before seeing him again.
‘No. It’s fine,’ she said, briskly pulling herself out of the food-obsessing habits of a past life. ‘I can do it. I just can’t promise the upholstery of the hire car will ever be the same again.’
‘No hire car,’ Kent said. ‘We’ll be using my all-terrain vehicle.’
Sadie nodded at him. Of course. An all-terrain vehicle. Mr Intense-and-rugged probably also had the Batmobile tucked away somewhere.
‘When do we leave?’ She sighed.
‘I’ll pick you up in the morning. Pack light. No places serving drinks with umbrellas where we’re going.’
‘Gee,’ she said sweetly, ‘imagine my surprise.’
Sadie’s fallback position had always been sarcasm—a defence mechanism against a world that constantly misjudged her because of the size of her chest. As an adult she tried her best to contain it but, sadly, it was too ingrained in her nature to be completely stifled.
And if Kent Nelson insisted on this ridiculous road trip, on spending days in a car alone together, then he could consider this a heads up.
Tabitha might have forced her hand, but she didn’t have to like it.
Sadie was ready when Kent rang the doorbell the next morning. She was wearing loose denim cut-offs and a modest polo shirt, her hair fell freely around her shoulders and a pair of ballet flats completed the ensemble. Her medium-sized backpack and a small insulated bag were waiting at the door.
Kent blinked at the transformation from serious city career girl in a power suit to girl-next-door. Again, her clothes did nothing to emphasise the curves—if anything they were on the baggy side.
It was just that Sadie’s curves were uncontainable.
Dressed like this, still absent of any bling, it was easy to believe she was only the twenty-four years Tabitha had informed him of yesterday.
Which made her precisely twelve years younger than him.
She was a baby, for crying out loud.
‘What’s in here?’ Kent asked as he grabbed the fridge bag off her and lifted her pack. An hour ago he’d been whistling as he’d loaded the vehicle for the trip, a buzz he hadn’t felt in a long time coursing through his veins.
The buzz was still there.
He just wasn’t sure, in the presence of Sadie, if it was one hundred per cent related to the drive any more.
‘Ginger ale,’ she said, watching how the muscles in his tanned forearms bunched.
Before yesterday she would have admired the delineation, the symmetry, the beauty of the fluid movement. Today they just made her insides feel funny.
And that was the last thing she needed.
Her insides would feel funny enough the minute they hit the first bend in the road.
‘I don’t expect you to carry my stuff,’ she said testily.
She wasn’t some delicate elfin thing that would shatter if she picked up anything heavier than her handbag. One look would have told him that. But he was already striding away despite a rather intriguing limp.
From the crash, she assumed.
She followed at a more sedate pace, glancing at the sturdy-looking Land Rover parked on the road with trepidation. With its functional metal cab, sturdily constructed roof railings and massive bull bar it looked like something the Australian army had engineered for land and amphibious combat. And had been test driven in a pigsty if the sludge-and-muck-encrusted paint job was any indication.
Staring at the tank on wheels, Sadie absently wondered whether Kent Nelson was compensating for something.
‘I didn’t know you could get mud masks for cars,’ she murmured as she joined him at the open back doors.
Kent grunted as he rearranged the supplies to accommodate her backpack. ‘She’s not young, she’s not very pretty but she’ll do the job.’
Sadie preferred pretty.
And men who didn’t talk about cars as if they were female. Especially this car. This car was one hundred per cent male.
‘Does she have air conditioning?’
Kent