Driving Her Crazy

‘Look,’ he said impatiently as she continued to sit. ‘It’s win-win. You don’t get to throw up every two minutes and I get to spot photo opps. I also don’t get to see you all trippy, which, given that we hardly know each other, is a good thing.’

Sadie couldn’t dispute his logic. The last thing she needed was to lose her inhibitions around a man who looked as if he kept his well and truly in check.

If he had any.

‘Fine.’

Sadie undid her belt and twisted in her seat to get out. She glanced at him, waiting for him to shift, her gaze snagging on his mouth. He didn’t for a moment and there was a split second when neither of them moved. When his beautiful mouth filled her entire vision and she found herself wishing he would say something just so she could admire how it moved. Then he stepped back and she half slid, half jumped to the ground on legs that seemed suddenly wobbly.

After giving Sadie a quick tutorial on the various idiosyncrasies of his vehicle, Kent left her to it, making no comment as she lurched it out onto the highway. Her grip on the steering wheel was turning her knuckles white and he was afraid she might split all the skin there if she didn’t ease up.

‘Relax,’ he ordered. ‘You’re doing fine.’

Strangely his command did not help Sadie relax. Her gaze flicked between the rear view and side mirrors as her heartbeat pelted along in time to the engine. She wasn’t sure if it was from nervousness about driving a strange car/tank that belonged to someone else or the weird moment she and Kent had shared as she’d exited the vehicle.

‘Relax,’ he said again.

‘Believe it or not,’ Sadie said, gritting her teeth as she eyeballed the road, ‘you telling me to relax is not helping.’

Kent held up his hands in surrender. ‘Okay.’

‘I just need to get used it,’ she quantified. ‘It’s not normal to be so high up. I feel like I’m driving a truck.’

Kent grimaced. It was hardly a semi-trailer. ‘I said okay.’

He turned then and dragged his camera case out of the back passenger floor well. Sadie was obviously stressed about driving the big, bad vehicle and he had little patience with princesses. Best to keep himself occupied and his lip zipped. And one more equipment check before they got too far away from civilisation wouldn’t go astray.

About ten minutes later he noticed her grip slacken and her shoulders relax back into the seat. Ten minutes after that she even started multitasking.

‘So. What’s the plan?’ Sadie asked, more comfortable now with how the car handled. ‘Where are our scheduled stops?’

Kent looked up from his disassembled camera. ‘Scheduled stops?’

Sadie nodded. ‘You know? Of a night time? When we’re tired?’

‘I hadn’t scheduled any stops. We’re driving all the way through.’

Sadie looked briefly away from the road to blast him with a you-have-to-be-kidding me look. A non-stop journey would probably take two full days.

Without a single break?

‘Don’t we have to sleep some time?’

He speared her with a direct look. ‘Do you really want to make this journey any longer than it has to be? We can pull over and catch some kip along the way. Either in the car or I have a couple of swags.’

Sadie supressed a shudder. Oh, goody. Maybe they’d find a jolly jumbuck to stuff inside. She flicked a quick glance towards him. ‘I don’t camp.’

Kent blinked at the way she said camp—as if she’d said prison. ‘What do you mean, you don’t camp?’

‘It’s simple,’ she said, returning her eyes to the road. ‘You don’t fly. I don’t camp.’

Great. Car sick. Didn’t camp. Sadie Bliss was stacking up the black marks against her name and truly pushing his patience. ‘What on earth have you got against sleeping under the stars?’

‘Nothing,’ Sadie assured him. ‘Give me five of them and I’m happy as a pig in mud.’

Kent shook his head. ‘You haven’t lived, city girl.’

‘I guess we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on that one,’ she said sweetly.

Kent’s mouth took on a grim line. ‘I have a feeling there may be a bit of that this trip.’

Sadie did too. ‘So? Where should we stop tonight, do you think?’ she prompted.

Kent pulled the map out of the glovebox, where Sadie had thrown it in disgust earlier, and did some calculations. ‘It’s about another ten hours to Cunnamulla,’ he said, looking at the digital clock display on the dash. It was just gone nine-thirty. ‘That’ll put us there after seven tonight. It’ll also put us over the Queensland border.’

‘Okay.’ Sadie nodded.

‘Doubt there’s any five-star accommodation there though,’ he mused. ‘We could go another couple hours on to Charleville. It’s twice the size. Still don’t think they run to five star.’

Sadie shot him a sarcastic smile. ‘Thanks, I’ll settle for a shower, a flushing toilet and a bed.’

‘Cunnamulla it is.’

With that sorted, silence reigned as they wended their way through the beautiful Blue Mountains, and down the other side of the Great Dividing Range. Kent went back to his camera bag, soothed by the familiarity of the routine. It had been a while since he’d lugged this stuff around, lived with it every day, and it was comforting to know it still felt good.

He occasionally shot a glance Sadie’s way. He had to admit, after her initial misgivings she was handling the vehicle with great competence. He’d been afraid she was going to whine about the heavy steering or the engine noise or the lack of a stereo system all the way to Borroloola, but she’d got on with the job with no complaints.

No chatter whatsoever.

His kind of travelling companion.

Until it all went to hell two minutes later.

‘So are we going to sit in silence or are we going to get to know each other?’ she asked.

Now she was out of the worst of the windy roads Sadie was free to concentrate on other things. And it had occurred to her that she was sitting next to a man who was pretty hot property, especially since he’d gone underground. How far would a feature on the Kent Nelson get her career? If she had to spend days on end in a car with his particular brand of he-man, she might as well get something for it.

And truly, the way he kept breaking down that camera and reassembling it, as if it were a gun, was slightly unnerving.

Kent sighed. He should have known it was too good to be true. ‘Silence is golden.’

Sadie quirked an eyebrow at his terse reply. ‘Silence is loud.’

He clicked a lens in place, then looked at her. ‘Listen to me, Sadie Bliss. Let’s not pretend that either of us is too thrilled by being stuck in this car together. I know women feel the need to chat and fill up all the empty spaces, but I’m okay with the empty spaces.’ It sure as hell beat the crowding in his head. ‘I like the empty spaces.’

‘I don’t feel the need,’ she dismissed irritably. ‘It’s just, you know...conversational. Polite.’

Kent shoved the camera back in its soft-sided bag. ‘I can handle rude.’