Driving Her Crazy - By Amy Andrews Page 0,25

zoom lens and looked through it. He smiled as the cloud took form and shape.

‘Emus,’ he announced.

Sadie stared as the cloud came closer and she could just make out individual figures. ‘So it is,’ she murmured. ‘Wow, look at them go!’

A flock of about a dozen of the large, flightless birds was running helter-skelter, their powerful legs eating up the paddock, their feet kicking up dirt and dust, their soft feathers bouncing with each foot fall. As they got closer still Sadie counted ten of them.

Even with them way out in the paddock when they passed by, they were a magnificent sight. ‘Where are they going?’ she mused out loud.

‘Who knows?’ Kent shrugged as he snapped off a series of pictures. ‘But they’re in a hurry.’

They’d no sooner drawn nearer then they were past. ‘That was amazing,’ Sadie said, watching the cloud get smaller and smaller. ‘I’ve never seen emus in the wild.’

He tisked. ‘City chick,’ he muttered as he continued to click away.

Sadie watched him as he peered through the lens—focused, centred. It reminded her of the picture she’d seen of him in New York, where the camera had seemed an extension of him. He stood, his whole body engaged in the process, as if he’d been born with a camera.

‘When did you know you wanted to take pictures for a living?’

Kent ignored her, snapping until the birds were no longer distinguishable. When he pulled the camera away from his face he looked down at Sadie. His first instinct was to shut her down, as he had been doing, but the camera felt good in his hand, the pictures he’d just taken felt right and he remembered the first time so vividly.

‘I was sixteen. My grandfather took me on a road trip to the Red Centre during the school holidays. His camera was ancient but it took amazing images.’

Sadie thought how nice it would have been to have had a grandparent in her life. ‘That was nice of him,’ she mused.

Kent snorted. ‘I think my mother was at the end of her tether and Grandad feared there would be bloodshed. I think he was just trying to save his daughter’s sanity.’

He smiled, remembering that momentous trip. How it had changed his life.

He put the camera to his face again and scanned the broad canvas before him. ‘There was something about the light out there,’ he said. ‘The contrasting colours. I was hooked.’

Sadie watched him peering through his lens. ‘I bet your mother was relieved,’ she murmured.

Kent gave a short sharp laugh as he lowered the camera. ‘Hell, yeah. She signed me up for a photography course as soon as I got back.’

Sadie sucked in a breath at the smile that transformed the harsh planes of his face. He really ought to do it more often. ‘And you never gave her a spot of bother again?’ she predicted.

He nodded. He had knuckled down. Once he’d found his calling he’d put his all into achieving his goal. ‘Essentially,’ he agreed as he returned his camera to its bag in the back of the car. ‘The war zone thing kind of freaked her out.’

Sadie nodded. ‘Mums worry. That’s their job, I guess.’

Her mother had worried about her too. About how she’d tried so hard to be the boy her father wanted. Tried even harder to be the woman Leo wanted. She’d been especially concerned at Sadie’s obsession with her figure.

Kent looked down at the pensive look on her face. She seemed to have gone somewhere far away, a little frown knitting her brows together, her teeth torturing that perfect bottom lip.

‘Come on,’ he said, stepping back from her. And her mouth. ‘We better get this show on the road if we want to get to Mt Isa before this day is over.’

They got to Mt Isa at eleven that night after a couple of stops for photos. They’d passed the hours with minimal conversation despite Sadie’s best efforts.

‘How are you feeling?’ Kent asked as he pulled into a petrol station. ‘Tired?’

Sadie shook her head. Strangely she wasn’t. Driving through the eerily flat landscape on a cloudless, practically moonless night had been weirdly energising. As if she were in a spaceship, floating through the cosmos.

‘You want to see if we can make the Northern Territory border? It’s another couple of hours but it’ll cut the trip down tomorrow. We can pull off to the side of the road and catch a few hours’ kip before moving on.’

Sadie regarded him for a minute. ‘Pull