Page 17 of Return of the Outback Billionaire

‘Not even your fiancé?’

‘Maybe if he asks nicely. Anyway, I’m heading for the darkroom. If anyone phones, come and get me.’

‘You mean if your fiancé phones?’

‘Or Reid.’ Reid might want to talk with her about the way she was trying to shoehorn in on his tourism plans. ‘Or Dad.’ Just in case he saw fit to tell her what was wrong. ‘But if anyone from the gallery calls, I’m not here. I’m out getting that final shot and it absolutely will be with them before opening night.’

Gert snorted and flapped her hand in Bridie’s direction. ‘Go.’

Bridie usually found developing film and pictures the old-fashioned way cathartic, but not today. Today her spacious darkroom reminded her of the lengths to which her father had gone to make it not remind her of the car boot she’d been bundled into during her abduction.

They’d fitted an old sitting room out with a revolving no-light no-lock door, and red LED strip lights. They’d covered windows and built benches and hung clothes lines for photos to hang from. These days her set-up was as good as any commercial darkroom in the city. Not that there were many of those left, given the advances in digital photography and automatic printing.

Thing was, she loved watching an image appear, ghostly at first, and then more certain, except today she wasn’t feeling very certain about anything.

Why had her father left Devil’s Kiss so suddenly? Had Judah’s reappearance dredged up too many ugly memories for him? He’d never say that, of course. Keep going, move on, no need to obsess.

She and her father had each been given ten free psych sessions after the event, courtesy of some government programme or other, and surely there was nothing left to talk about or even think about after that?

Facts were facts. Her father and Judah had been driving farm utes and between them had railroaded Laurence Levit and his zippy little sports car straight off the beaten track and into the superfine red dirt. Laurence’s car, with her in the boot, had bumped over shrubbery and swerved hard before coming to a stop, bogged to the axels, and no amount of revving had done anything but dig them deeper.

Car doors had slammed. Bridie had started kicking and hadn’t heard much, but she had heard the shot. Then Judah had been there, reaching for her, his face pale and shocked. A rufus red moon had hung low in the sky, silvery light glinting off the blade of the knife he’d used to cut the tape that had bound her hands and feet. She’d clung to him like a burr and his arms around her had been like bands of warm steel and he’d smelled like sweat and fear.

Her father hadn’t tried to save Laurence at all, but Judah had tended the fallen man once he’d handed her off to her father. His efforts after the fact had earned him a charge of manslaughter rather than murder. He’d been just twenty, younger than she was now. Twenty and imprisoned on her account, and she’d always had a hard time finding the justice in that, but there was no point dwelling on it.

Move on, said her father, who’d been wholly uncomfortable in Judah’s presence last night, and who’d taken off this morning for places unknown.

Bridie’s big, beautifully appointed darkroom, which she usually took so much pleasure in, wasn’t working for her today. Not when memories held sway. Better to be out and about, searching for that elusive final photograph for her exhibition—the one that would link all the rest of them. She already knew what needed to be in that shot. Fear. Foreboding. Freedom. Wonder.

All she had to do was look through the lens and find them.

‘Change of plans, Gert. I’m heading out to take some shots and I’ll be back before you leave.’ Bridie sailed through the kitchen and ducked into the wet room for her boots and hat. ‘Wish me luck.’

Two days later, with the weather radar promising late-afternoon thunderstorms if they were lucky, Judah finally paid her a visit. Gert was at Judah’s now and her father still hadn’t called, and if the sight of Judah strong and stern and unmistakably present made her unaccountably happy, probably best not to mention it.

‘Greetings, fiancé of mine. How’s it going?’ she asked, aiming for breezy and doing a fair job of it if his almost smile was any indication.

‘Not bad.’

She loved the rumble in his voice and the way he stood at the bottom of the steps, boots planted firmly in the dirt and his jeans clinging to strong legs. His cotton shirt had seen better days and the sleeves had been rolled up to expose corded forearms and prominent veins. He wore a black felt hat that dipped at the front, pinched at the top and sat level at the sides. He looked so quintessentially of the outback that it put her at ease. No matter where life had taken him, he’d grown up here, he knew this place the same way she did and there was comfort in that, and security. ‘If only your wheeling, dealing billionaire buddies could see you now. What brings you by?’

‘Gert said your father was away.’

‘Yup.’

‘For how long?’

‘He didn’t say.’

‘I’ve been trying to get hold of him.’ Judah studied her from beneath the brim of his hat and she wished she could see his eyes a little more clearly.

‘Join the club. But if he’s heading for Broome, he’s likely well out of range.’

‘What’s in Broome?’

‘My aunt.’ The same aunt who’d travelled with Bridie to Paris all those years ago, both of them so totally out of their league they’d been easy pickings for a predator like Laurence. He’d been Bridie’s modelling agent, and her aunt Bethany had never stood a chance against his calculated seduction. It had made his obsessive control over Bridie’s career all the more insidious. His growing need to possess Bridie in every way possible had kicked in some time after that.

‘How is Beth?’

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