Red Dust Dreaming Read Online Free PDF Page B

veranda, letting the screen door bang loudly behind him. The sun had begun its slide towards the horizon. If he had to choose a favourite part of the day it would be these hours before dusk or the one just before dawn as Nature gathered herself for the transition. He sat in one of the chairs gracing the veranda and propped his feet up on the railing.
    The screen door squeaked open and Caden made a mental note to oil the hinges, one of those jobs that kept falling through the cracks. He didn’t need to turn his head to know Elizabeth stood looking at him. All the hairs on the back of his neck stood up with a kind of preternatural awareness. He swore he could feel her breathing.
    â€œGood afternoon,” he said keeping his eyes straight ahead. “Did you enjoy your nap?”
    Elizabeth stepped towards him. “I did thank you. The time difference is playing havoc with my body. I don’t know how people travel back and forth all the time.”
    She sat in the chair next to him and he shifted uncomfortably. “It’s easier when you’re going back the other way.” Small talk. Safe topic. He sensed rather than saw her nod her head in agreement.
    â€œSo I hear.” A silence opened up between them and he braced himself for whatever came next.
    She drew a breath, “I was hoping to spend some time with Luke this afternoon. Do you know where he is?”
    Caden relaxed a little. Another safe topic. “Luke is out riding a fence line with one of the head stockman’s boys.”
    Elizabeth stretched out her bare legs as she settled back into her chair. They appeared longer than she was tall and he struggled to keep his eyes off them. “It’s generous of you to give the stockman time off of his duties to take the boys riding.”
    â€œI didn’t. The boys are old enough to ride the home paddock fence line.”
    â€œYou mean you let two little boys out…” she waved her arm at the sweeping landscape, “…out there alone with no adult supervision.” Her voice raised an entire octave.
    â€œLuke has been on the back of a horse since before he could walk and the other boy is nearly ten. They are riding sedate, mature horses around an area which is well marked. There is no danger of them riding off into the desert never to be found again.” Caden figured Elizabeth had watched Meryl Streep in A Cry in the Dark and now her imagination was running wild.
    â€œThat’s not the point. What if something happened to one of them? What if a horse bolted or a snake attacked…”
    â€œSnakes don’t attack as a rule. They tend to steer clear of us as we prefer to steer clear of them.” He kept his voice level and reasonable.
    â€œYou know what I mean,” she snapped rising out of her chair to lean against the rail. Her eyes scanned the horizon for Luke. “What time are you expecting them back?”
    Caden shrugged even though he knew she couldn’t see him. “In time for dinner. He’ll come in when he gets hungry.”
    She spun about to face him, her eyes wild with alarm. “But what if night falls and he’s not back?”
    He was up out of his chair before the act registered in his mind, driven by a primeval need to comfort her. There was something vulnerable about those big blue eyes which hooked him hard. He managed to stop his hands from reaching out to her a moment before he could embarrass them both. “The boys know to come in before the sun dips behind the hill. This is not the first time they’ve ridden out together, and it won’t be the last.”
    Elizabeth looked up at him then, all her concern on display for him to see. She wrapped her arms around herself as if to comfort her own fears. “He can’t just wander off in New York.”
    â€œAnd he won’t. He doesn’t know New York like he knows Kirrkalan.”
    â€œBut he’s only five years old. How can he know