Driving Her Crazy - By Amy Andrews Page 0,43

of long grass and silhouetted in the moonlight.

‘I wish I could see these bigger,’ Sadie said, frustrated by the vast outback night condensed to one tiny image.

‘USB lead in the camera bag—attach it to your laptop,’ Kent said as he threw bigger logs onto the fire.

Delighted, Sadie hooked up his camera to her laptop and scrolled through the images again. She skimmed right through the ones of Leo and his monolith, slowing down as she got to Kent’s outback shots.

‘These are amazing,’ Sadie breathed in awe. ‘They’re going to look spectacular in the feature.’

Kent nodded, more than a little pleased with the shots himself.

‘How did it feel? Out there, taking them?’ she asked.

Kent paused, surprised at her question. Surprised even more that he wanted to answer it. ‘It felt...good.’ As if the part of him that had died, or had at least been severely injured, was finally recovering. ‘Familiar.’

Sadie realised she probably wasn’t going to get any more from Mr Silent and contented herself going through the shots a second time, picturing them laid out in the magazine. When she was done she realised the shadows had grown quite long and evening was just about to fall around them. She shivered as the temperature suddenly seemed to plummet.

‘Here,’ Kent said, coming up behind her and plonking something around her shoulders.

Sadie hunched into the warmth of the fleecy flannelette shirt, like one of those cowboys always wore.

How fitting that Kent should own one.

‘How does two-minute noodles and flambéed marshmallows sound?’ he asked as he sat on the groundsheet he’d laid down earlier.

Sadie laughed. ‘Will we be singing “Kum-ba-yah” too?’

Kent grunted as he set the billy in the fire to boil the water for the noodles. ‘I don’t sing.’

Sadie rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t sing. Don’t fly. Don’t talk. What do you do for fun, Kent Nelson?’ she teased.

Kent looked up at her encased in his shirt. Long shadows formed on her cheeks from her eyelashes as the firelight played over her face and the sky behind her slowly faded to a deep purple. He tried not to think about the many fun things they could be doing right now.

Sadie held her breath for a second or two as the copper highlights flickered to life in Kent’s gaze. And she didn’t think it was from the fire.

‘I flambé marshmallows,’ he said.

He turned back to the billy and Sadie breathed again, the moment passing.

She asked him some technical questions to do with his photography, which got them through the noodles, but when she confessed to never having roasted marshmallows in a fire and she sat down beside him for tuition, things moved back to that state of awareness again and she knew he was feeling it too.

Kent laughed as he watched Sadie attempting to cook her marshmallow in the coals of the fire, too frightened to shove it right in and turn it into a little ball of flame. He couldn’t believe anyone could get to their twenties and not have done something so simple and so damn good.

‘You’re doing it wrong.’ He tutted as she pulled off a lukewarm marshmallow and popped it into a mouth already moist and sticky.

Not something that was good for his sanity.

Her cheeks were flushed by the heat radiating from the fire and she looked like a teenager.

‘They’re supposed to be like this,’ he said, pulling his out from the fire glowing brightly in the night like a meteor burning up on entry. He blew on it gently, putting it out, then pulled it off the end of his stick and dropped it into his mouth.

Sadie watched the process, fascinated. Who’d have thought lips that would have been perfectly at home on a statue would also look just as good coated in gooey marshmallow? Last night it hadn’t even occurred to her to analyse how he tasted. It had been too quick, too intense.

Now she couldn’t think about anything else.

‘Doesn’t it taste burnt?’ she asked, looking away as she realised she was staring.

He shook his head as he skewered another soft treat and held it above the coals. ‘It tastes crunchy and then explodes in your mouth all hot and gooey.’

Sadie’s mouth watered. And she was pretty sure it had nothing to do with the marshmallows.

Kent’s marshmallow caught and he pulled it away, pushing the glowing orb her way. ‘Here, just try it.’

Sadie shook her head. ‘Won’t it burn my fingers?’

Kent rolled his eyes as he blew on it and pulled it off. ‘You’re such a city girl.’