He didn’t elaborate, so she mentally backtracked, went through her morning chores. Maybe she’d painted something the wrong shade? Installed a hat hook upside down?
She hadn’t left the usually locked cupboard unlocked, had she? A horrid image of a dead miniature horse and three dead chooks lying around a chewed container of mineral turpentine flashed across her vision.
No. She’d definitely locked it. Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey, same as always.
An even worse thought struck her and she braced herself against a wheel strut. ‘You’ve sold my plane, haven’t you?’ Damn it,whyhad she wasted all this time and not been to see Sleazebag McDonald already?
He frowned. ‘What? No.’ His eyes barely glanced at the Wirraway, which was (and yes, she was biased) beginning to shine like the diamond it had once been. The RAAF paint she’d colour-matchedhad given the fuselage a slick sheen. The windows gleamed, and the rondel was so sharp it put a jolt in her chest every time she saw it. She’d even polished the armament as though she were a great aunt and it was the family silver.
Which, in a way, it was.
Not that the Foxes had great aunts. Or silver. But still.
Joe didn’t seem to care about the Wirraway and how great it was looking, which was a relief, but perhaps she ought to start covering it with a tarpaulin.
Joe was talking, and it took a moment for her to drag her mind back from all the reasons why the plane should be hers and not his.
‘My mother has been ghosting me and I’m trying to find out why,’ he was saying.
Oh. ‘Maybe it’s that grumpy look on your face,’ she said, then clamped her hand over her mouth.
Overstepping, Kirsty Fox.
He didn’t seem to mind. Instead, his face relaxed. ‘Maybe. I hope Gus hasn’t been bothering you.’
She tilted her head. ‘Gus never thinks he’s a bother.’
He grinned, and this smile was more like it … the half-arrogant, half-boy-next-door smirk that he must know was irresistible. ‘Kind of like Amy. You hear that, mate?’ he said to the dog. ‘Kirsty’s got your number.’
‘I quite like the company, to be honest. Once he’s worked out I don’t have any sausages hidden in my bag, he settles down.’
‘Feel like a little more company?’
Was that a flirty tone underlining those words? She eyed him, and her heart gave a thump behind her ribs. ‘Is this some trick to make me till a field for you?’
‘No,’ he said, laughing. ‘But you are welcome to my tractor anytime. I was thinking about a swim; get the grunge off after a weird and shitty day.’
A weird and shitty day, huh? That must have been the phone call he’d been taking.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘there’s a swimming hole near here that all the locals know about. I’ll show you.’
She stood for a moment in the doorway to the shed. She should be going to town and inspecting the old dress in the suitcase she’d inherited … comparing it with the photograph she’d found inThe Muddle-Headed Wombat, not watching farmers strip off their totally unsuitable workwear to splash about in creek water. She should just let him go.
But … she laid a hand on her chest. Dear oh dear. He was too busy to scuttle her plane donation project just this minute … but what about tomorrow? Or the next day?
She needed to visit the New Guinea war museum in Wacol. Provide an alternative future for the plane than the commercial one he might have mapped out in his head. An amble through the bush might be the perfect, relaxed, no-stress time in which to bring it up.
‘Daisy said she might pop in. She wants to see the nose art on the plane.’
‘Got a pen?’
‘Er … sure.’ She pointed to the workbench where her backpack and notes and spare rivets were spilled every which way, and Joey walked over and scribbled something on a yellow hardware store receipt.
He tucked it under a rock at the shed doorway and took off around the corner.
At the waterhole, his scribble said.No need to follow us.
Oh boy! Kirsty didn’t know whether to laugh or blush, but—‘Wait for me,’ she called, then scampered after him at much the same speed as Gus had.