Grand Masti - Fun Never Ends. Neha Puntambekar

of months before she’d realised how things really were. How she’d played nice and sat on her hands while the police seemed to achieve less and less. Maybe if she’d started sooner—

      ‘I trusted the system.’

      ‘But the authorities didn’t find him?’

      ‘There are tens of thousands of missing people every year. I just figured that the only people who could make Trav priority number one were his family.’

      ‘That many? Really?’

      ‘Teens. Kids. Women. Most are located pretty quickly.’

      But ten per cent weren’t.

      His eyes tracked down to the birthdate on the poster. ‘Healthy eighteen-year-old males don’t really make it high up the priority list?’

      A small fist formed in her throat. ‘Not when there’s no immediate evidence of foul play.’

      And even if they maybe weren’t entirely healthy, psychologically. But Travis’s depression was hardly unique amongst The Missing and his anxiety attacks were longstanding enough that the authorities dismissed them as irrelevant. As if a bathroom cabinet awash with mental health medicines wasn’t relevant.

      A young woman with bright pink hair badly in need of a recolour brought Marshall’s beer and Eve’s lime and bittes and sloshed them on the table.

      ‘That explains the bus,’ he said. ‘It’s very...homey.’

      ‘It is my home. Mine went to pay for the trip.’

      ‘You sold your house?’

      Her chin kicked up. ‘And resigned from my job. I can’t afford to be distracted by having to earn an income while I cover the country.’

      She waited for the inevitable judgment.

      ‘That’s quite a commitment. But it makes sense.’

      Such unconditional acceptance threw her. Everyone else she’d told thought she was foolish. Or plain crazy. Implication: like her brother. No one just...nodded.

      ‘That’s it? No opinion? No words of wisdom?’

      His eyes lifted to hers. ‘You’re a grown woman. You did what you needed to do. And I assume it was your asset to dispose of.’

      She scrutinised him again. The healthy, unmarked skin under the shaggy beard. The bright eyes. The even teeth.

      ‘What’s your story?’ she asked.

      ‘No story. I’m travelling.’

      ‘You’re not a bikie.’ Statement, not question.

      ‘Not everyone with a motorbike belongs in an outlaw club,’ he pointed out.

      ‘You look like a bikie.’

      ‘I wear leather because it’s safest when you get too intimate with asphalt. I have a beard because one of the greatest joys in life is not having to shave, and so I indulge that when I’m travelling alone.’

      She glanced down to where the dagger protruded from his T-shirt sleeve. ‘And the tattoo?’

      His eyes immediately darkened. ‘We were all young and impetuous once.’

      ‘Who’s Christine?’

      ‘Christine’s not relevant to this discussion.’

      Bang. Total shutdown. ‘Come on, Marshall. I aired my skeleton.’

      ‘Something tells me you air it regularly. To anyone who’ll listen.’

      Okay, this time the criticism was unmistakable. She pushed more upright in her chair. ‘You were asking the questions, if you recall.’

      ‘Don’t get all huffy. We barely know each other. Why would I spill my guts to a stranger?’

      ‘I don’t know. Why would you rescue a stranger on the street?’

      ‘Not wanting to see you beaten to a pulp and not wanting to share my dirty laundry are very different things.’

      ‘Oh, Christine’s dirty laundry?’

      His lips thinned even further and he pushed away from the table. ‘Thanks for the drink. Good luck with your brother.’

      She shot to her feet, too. ‘Wait. Marshall?’

      He stopped and turned back slowly.

      ‘I’m sorry. I guess I’m out of practice with people,’ she said.

      ‘You’re not kidding.’

      ‘Where are you staying?’

      ‘In town.’

      Nice and non-specific. ‘I’m a bit... I get a bit tired of eating in the bus. On my own. Can I interest you in something to eat, later?’

      ‘I don’t think so.’

      Walk away, Eve. That would be the smart thing to do.

      ‘I’ll change the subject. Not my brother. Not your...’ Not your Christine? ‘We can talk about places we’ve been. Favourite sights.’ Her voice petered out.

      His eyebrows folded down over his eyes briefly and disguised them from her view. But he finally relented. ‘There’s a café across the street from my motel. End of this road.’

      ‘Sounds good.’

      She didn’t usually eat out, to save money, but then she didn’t usually have the slightest hint of company either. One dinner wouldn’t kill her. Alone with a stranger. Across the road from his motel room.

      ‘It’s not a date, though,’ she hastened to add.

      ‘No.’ The moustache twisted up on the left. ‘It’s not.’

      And as he and his leather pants sauntered back out of the bar, she felt like an idiot. An adolescent idiot. Of course this was not a date and of course he wouldn’t have considered it such. Hairy, lone-wolf types who travelled the country on motorbikes probably didn’t stand much on ceremony when it came to women. Or bother with dates.

      She’d only mentioned a meal at all because she felt bad that she’d pressed an obvious sore point with him after he’d shown her nothing but interest and acceptance about Travis.

       *facepalm*

      Her brother’s favourite saying flittered through her memory and never seemed more appropriate. Hopefully, a few hours and a good shower from now she could be a little more socially appropriate and a lot less hormonal.

      Inexplicably so.

      Unwashed biker types were definitely not her thing, no matter how nice their smiles. Normally, the eau de sweaty man that littered towns in the Australian bush flared her nostrils. But as Marshall Sullivan had hoisted her up against his body out in the street she’d definitely responded to the powerful circle of his hold, the hard heat of his chest and the warmth of his hissed words against her ear.

      Even though it came with the tickle of his substantial beard against her skin.

      She was so not a beard woman.

      A man who travelled the country alone was almost certainly doing it for a reason. Running from something or someone. Dropping out of society. Hiding from the authorities. Any number of mysterious and dangerous things.

      Or maybe Marshall Sullivan was just as socially challenged as she was.

      Maybe that was why she had a sudden and unfathomable desire to sit across a table from the man again.

      ‘See you at seven-thirty, then,’ she called after him.

      * * *

      Eve’s annoyance at herself for being late—and at caring about that—turned into annoyance at Marshall