Hope's Road by Margareta Osborn Page A

rustiest skills. That and talking. And sex.
    The laughter had dried up as he joined them. They both looked at him in consternation. One pair of assessing dark brown eyes. Another smaller pair of concerned hazel. Trav sighed. So much for joining in on the joke.
    â€˜Hi. I’m Tammy McCauley,’ the woman said. ‘I’m just admiring Billy’s new cars. Classy way to spend your pay packet, that’s for sure.’ She smiled at Billy. Trav wanted her to smile at him like that. All warm like you were the only person worthy of her attention at that moment. And then there was that voice. It reminded him of rich chocolate. Sinful yet sweet.
    What had got into him? He never mooned over a woman. In fact having one in his life wasn’t even on his to-do list, as long as that was. He loved Katrina. Correction. Had loved Katrina. She’d killed anything he was ever going to feel for the opposite sex.
    His heart seemed to have other ideas. Eight years was a long while. Maybe it was time to move on? Yeah right, Hunter. Move on to a married woman. Just what he needed, more ­complications.
    â€˜Mr Hunter? Travis?’ Tammy was talking to him again and Trav realised he must have been staring because Billy was looking at him like he’d grown two heads. He could almost see the boy’s mind working. What the heck’s got into the old man? He quickly pulled himself together. The best form of defence was attack, right? ‘Billy tells me he’s working for you. Sure you want him? He’s pretty young and all –’
    â€˜I’m not too young, Dad!’ Billy piped up, indignant. Then the boy stopped like he’d just realised who he was talking to. ‘I’m the right size. Ms McCauley said so,’ he squeaked.
    Travis frowned at his son, pissed off at the interruption. ‘How about we let Ms McCauley answer that one, Billy?’
    Tammy moved to stand behind the boy, and placed two hands on his scrawny shoulders. ‘He’s the perfect size for a farmhand, Mr Hunter. Not too small that he can’t drag a pressure hose around the cow-yard and not too big that he can’t clean out the chook nesting boxes. You’re built for both jobs, aren’t you, mate?’
    She had an almost proprietorial air around his son. He had to battle with his natural inclination to tell her to get her hands the hell off his boy. But then he noticed the way Billy leaned into her body, like a pup seeking reassurance off his mother, and he had to bite his tongue.
    The woman was obviously trying to help. But she just made Trav feel all the worse. He already knew he wasn’t much of a father. He didn’t need some do-gooding Tammy McCauley Murphy to tell him so, that’s all.
    And now he’d been told his son was wagging school, and he had to admit to the kid’s teacher he had no idea where the boy was.
    Trav pulled his ute up in the yard large enough for a B-double milk tanker to turn around in. Two dogs came screaming around the side of the dairy, yelping their heads off but wagging their tails as they ran. They could probably smell dogs all over Trav’s ute. His dog boxes on the ute’s tray were empty, but that didn’t mean their scent was gone.
    Tammy McCauley appeared around the corner of the cowshed. He got a better look at her this time. She was slim and finely built, brown hair clasped tightly back from her face in a ponytail. In the middle of pulling on a peaked cap and donning sunglasses, she had a frown on her face. When she worked out who was in her drive, the frown deepened into a scowl.
    He wondered what he’d done to deserve that. ‘Just wond­ering if Billy was around here somewhere?’
    â€˜And why would you care, Mr Hunter?’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜I said, why would you care?’
    â€˜I know what you said.’ Trav could feel his own hackles rising. He couldn’t for the life of him work out why she was so