and warm up,” she said, digging her heels in.
“I want to see the other rocks.”
She assessed him. “Is this one of those man things, refusing to let the elements get the better of you, yada yada?”
“Maybe.”
“Pathetic. Come on, we’re going back.”
She whistled to get Mr. Smith’s attention, letting him know with a gesture that she was heading home. He loped to her side, Strudel hard on his heels, both of them wet and speckled with sand, tongues lolling happily.
“I’m really fine,” Oliver said.
His shoulders were hunched even higher, his arms rigid against his body as he buried his hands deep in his coat pockets.
“I feel cold just looking at you. Here, have this.” She started to unwind her scarf.
“Get out of here. I’m not taking your scarf.” Oliver waved her away.
“It’s ugly but warm. And you need it more than I do,” she said.
“I’m not taking your scarf, Mackenzie. End of discussion.”
She frowned at him, the scarf hanging from her hands in big loops. “Is this another man thing?”
“This is most definitely a man thing.”
“Okay, fine. If your pride won’t let you accept the whole thing, take half.”
Before he could respond, she looped the end of the scarf around his neck a couple times. There was still plenty left dangling so she looped the other end around her own neck. Oliver looked at her, then at the lumpy, multicolored band joining them.
“My God, it is ugly, isn’t it?”
“My niece made it.”
“Hence the fact you’re actually wearing this in public.”
They fell into step as they retraced their steps.
“This niece...she’s, what, six?” He examined the scarf critically.
“Nearly twenty.”
He looked startled. “Really?”
She laughed. “She’s eight. And she tells me she’s taken up beading now. Something to look forward to this Christmas.”
“So I take it you have a brother or sister?” he asked.
“A brother. Older. They live in Perth. He’s involved in mining.”
They talked about their respective families as they walked. She heard about his brother, Brent, and Brent’s two children, while she told him about Gareth and her niece and nephew. The shared scarf meant they were close to each other, and every now and then her shoulder or hip bumped his. It was strange and nice in equal measures. Strange because it had been a long time since she’d enjoyed this kind of casual intimacy with a man—or, in fact, with anyone. And nice for the same reasons.
Oliver had to unwind a loop to allow them to walk in single file along the bush path. He kept her laughing all the way, comparing them to a couple of Buddhist teachers he read about a few years ago who made it a practice to never be more than fifteen feet from each other at all times. She suggested they were more like a line of elephants walking trunk in tail and Oliver produced one of the best elephant calls she’d ever heard from a non-elephant.
“You’re freakishly good at that,” she said.
“I have many pointless gifts.”
Gravel crunched underfoot as they left the sandy path and started toward their houses, Oliver matching his stride to hers.
“Sorry for the slow pace,” she said, glancing at his much longer legs. “The spirit is willing, the body not so much these days.”
He was silent a moment.
“Does it hurt?”
She wasn’t surprised by the question. She’d lost the natural swing of her hips with her injuries and was well aware that her walk appeared stiff and ungainly.
“Walking on its own doesn’t hurt. My hip is compromised, though, so things don’t move around as easily as they used to. Which isn’t to say that learning to walk again was a lot of fun. Still, it was better than the alternative.”
There had been a few days following the accident when the swelling on her spine had been so severe there had been a question mark over her ever being able to walk again.
“Can I ask what happened?”
Another not-surprising question, but one she still wasn’t comfortable talking about. Recalling the scene, however briefly and succinctly, tended to resurrect the entire experience. Still, they had been swapping horror stories.... “We had an early morning call-out for a location shoot. I was driving to the location to meet the crew. The weather was terrible, it was still dark, the road was wet... I came around the corner and there’d been a landslide. I hit the brakes, but it was way too late.”
“Jesus.”
For a second she was lost in the memory, the world a dark, scary place, death screaming toward her at sixty kilometers an hour.