Argentinian in the Outback

“I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?” Ava asked with a frown.

“Yes, miss.” The jackeroo sketched a wobbly bow. “I’m Bluey. This gentleman here did a great job of saving me life. I’d have broken a leg, for sure.”

“You’d have broken a great deal more than that,” Varo pointed out, this time making no attempt to hide the note of reproof.

“It was a mongrel goanna.” Bluey made a wild gesture with his skinny arms. “About six feet long.”

“Nonsense!” Ava shook her head. “It was probably a sand goanna, half that size. You must have alarmed it.”

“Well, it rushed me anyway,” Bluey mumbled, implying anyone would have reacted the same way. “Sprang up from under a tree. I thought it was a damned log, beggin’ your pardon.”

“Some log!” It was all Ava could do not to tell Bluey off. “You could have frightened it off with a few flicks of the whip.”

“Couldn’t think fast enough,” Bluey confessed, looking incredibly hot and dirty.

The expression on Juan-Varo de Montalvo’s handsome face conveyed what he thought of the jackeroo’s explanation. “You’re all right to mount your horse again?” he addressed the boy with clipped authority in his voice.

“Poor old Elvis.” Bluey shook his copper head. “The black mane, yah know? I thought his heart would burst.”

“The black mane?” Varo’s expression lightened. He even laughed. “I see.”

Ava was finding it difficult to keep her eyes off him. He looked immensely strong and capable, unfazed by near disaster. His polished skin glowed. The lock of hair that had fallen forward onto his tanned forehead gave him a very dashing, rakish look. He wore his hair fairly long, so it curled above the collar of his shirt. She tried not to think how incredibly sexy he was. She needed no such distraction.

As they paused in the shade small birds that had been hidden in the safety of the tall grasses burst into the air, rising only a few feet before the predatory hawks made their lightning dives. Panicked birds were caught up, others managed to plummet back into the thick grass. This was part of nature. As a girl Ava had always called out to the small birds, in an effort to save them from the marauding hawks, but it had been an exercise in futility.

“What were you doing on your own anyway, Bluey? You should have been with the men.”

Bluey tensed. “Headin’ for the Six Mile,” he said evasively. “You’re not gunna tell the boss, are you?” he asked, as though they shared a fearful secret.

Varo glanced at Ava, who was clearly upset, her eyes sparkling. He decided to intervene. “Get back on your horse. I assume the red hair justifies the nickname! We’ll ride with you to the house. You’ll need something for those skinned hands.”

“A wash up wouldn’t hurt either,” Ava managed after a moment. “Think you’ll be more alert next time a goanna makes a run for your horse?”

“I’ll practise a lot with me whip,” Bluey promised, some colour coming back into his blanched cheeks. “I hope I didn’t spoil your day?”

“Spoil our day?” Ava’s voice rose. “It would have been horrible if anything had happened, Bluey. Thank God Varo was with me. I doubt I could have caught you, let alone have the strength to bring the horses under control.”

“Sorry, miss,” Bluey responded, though he didn’t look all that troubled. “I could never learn to ride like you.” Bluey looked to the man who had saved him from certain injury or worse.

“You can say that again!” Ava responded with sarcasm.

“Thanks a lot, mate.” Bluey leaked earnest admiration from every pore.

Varo made a dismissive gesture. “M-a-t-e!” He drew the word out on his tongue.

“Well, that’s one version of it.” Ava had to smile. Did the man have any idea what a fascinating instrument his voice was? “Well, come on, Bluey,” she said, giving the jackeroo a sharp look. “Get back up on your horse.”

Bluey shook himself to attention. “Dunno who got the bigger fright—me or Elvis.” He produced a daft grin.

As they rode back to the homestead Ava couldn’t help wondering if Bluey would ever make it as a station hand. His derring-do could prove a danger to others. From fright and alarm he had gone now to questioning his hero about life on the Argentine pampas, confiding that everyone—“I mean everyone!”—would be turning up to see him play polo at the weekend. “You got one helluva lot of strength inside you,” Bluey told the South American visitor with great admiration.

“Just as well. It was a titanic struggle,” Ava said, resisting the impulse to call Bluey the derogatory galah. “Common sense goes a long way. If I find you’ve used up eight lives …?” She paused significantly.

“Please don’t tell the boss, miss,” Bluey begged. “One more sin and he’ll kick me out.”

“And there goes your big adventure.” Ava shrugged, thinking admonition might well fall on deaf ears. “It could be later than you think, Bluey. Now, let’s get you cleaned up.”

CHAPTER THREE

WHEN they arrived back at the homestead, Varo sent the jackeroo off to the first-aid room.

“Let me have a word with this young man.” He inclined his head towards Ava.

“You think you can talk some sense into him?” she asked sceptically. “I remember now—he once put Amelia in danger with one of his ill-conceived stunts.”

“I think I can make him see sense,” he answered with quiet authority. “He knows there’s a strong possibility he will be sent home if Dev hears about this.”

“Maybe we should tell Dev?” she suggested with utter seriousness. “In rescuing Bluey you put yourself at considerable risk.”

“One doesn’t think of that at such a time.” He dismissed the risk factor, looking deeply into her eyes.

“All right,” she consented, trying not to appear flustered. “I’ll see to lunch. This afternoon I thought I might show you the hill country. It’s not all low-rise on Kooraki. The hills reach a fair height. A good climb, anyway—and there’s so much to see. Aboriginal rock paintings. And there really was an inland sea—but we’re talking pre-history. There are drawings of crocodiles on the rock walls. X-ray depictions of fish. We even have a waterfall of sorts at the moment. It plunges downhill into the rock pool beneath it. Not even a trickle in the Dry, of course.”

She knew the rock pool would be a great place for a dip. The waters were fairly deep, and crystal-clear, but Juan-Varo de Montalvo made her feel far too aware of herself as a woman to risk donning a bathing suit.

“We will ride there?” he asked, already filled with fascination for the fabled Outback.

She shook her blonde head. “We’ll take the Jeep. I’ll even let you drive.” She gave him a quick smile which he thought as alluring as any water nymph. “There’s no wrong side of the road.”

“Gracias, Señora,” His black eyes glittered as he acknowledged her marital status.

It was quite a job to keep her expression composed. Infatuation was the last thing she had seen coming.

From the passenger window Ava eyed the Wetlands, home to thousands upon thousands of waterbirds. The vast expanse of water had joined up with the lignum swamps to the extent one didn’t know where the lignum swamps ended and the Wetlands started up.

“In times of drought this great expanse of water will dry up,” she told Varo, who drove like he did everything else. With absolute skill and confidence. “The parched surface becomes crisscrossed by cracks and the footprints of the wildlife—kangaroos, emus, camels, wild pigs, snakes, or any human walking across the dry ochre sand.”

“Camels I have to see,” he said, giving her a quick sidelong smile.

“You will,” she promised. “The Afghan traders brought them in the early days. 1840, to be precise. They thrived here. We even export them to Arab countries. They’re part of the landscape now, but they can be very destructive. Not as much as hoofed animals, however. Their feet are adapted for deserts. They have soft pads, but they eat everything in sight, depleting the food supply for our indigenous species. They’re very dangerous too, when the male goes on heat.”

“The male?” One black eyebrow shot up.

“Bizarre, but true. At the last count there were over a million feral camels scattered over the desert areas of the Territory, Western Australian, South Australia and Queensland’s desert fringe. The introduced water buffalo of the Territory do tremendous damage to the environment and the ecosystem. Even our dingoes were introduced.”

“But I thought they were native Australian animals?” He glanced back at her. She had taken her beautiful hair out of its plait. Now it was sliding over her shoulders and down her back in shining, deep sensuous waves. She had changed for lunch, as had he. Now she was wearing a blue T-shirt with a silver designer logo on the front. The clingy fabric drew his eyes to the delicate shape of her high breasts.

“They’ve been here for thousands of years,” she was saying, snapping him back to attention, “but they came from South East Asia originally, where they must have been domestic dogs. Over the four or five thousand years they’ve been here, they’ve established themselves in the wilds. They’re our number-one predator. They can attack, even kill—especially if the victim is small, like a child.”