Free His Brand of Beautiful by Lily Malone Page A

engine clicked. A bird piped a call as if asking its mates what the heck just flew out of the sky.
    Stretching felt good. His neck cracked.
    Christina mimicked him, fingers smoothing chestnut tangles from her hair. She leaned back into the cockpit to retrieve her beanie and pulled it over her head.
    Tate let himself breathe. Really breathe.
    This air was everything he loved. No scent of the popcorn that always blew from the cinemas on The Parade, no smell of bubblegum squashed on city streets or melted cheese Lily Malone
    on microwave meals or car exhaust fumes. He filled his lungs with air filtered through eucalyptus leaves, washed by damp earth and river sand.
    “Well, this isn’t so bad,” Christina said, breathing the same air beside him and looking like she relished it.
    He was sure that wouldn’t last.
    Gilbert Newell’s old Pajero started first go and five minutes later Tate veered right where the airstrip track turned into the homestead’s main entrance. He rattled over the cattle grid, past the stockyards where he halter‐broke his first horse and the stables where Jolie fell off the rafters and broke her arm. Twice. Trying to show she could keep up with her brothers.
    Binara Homestead opened before them, stately as ever, greener than he remembered. He shook his head, oddly irritated by all the colour and unsure why. In his memory, Binara was always cracked orange‐brown. Green felt too civilised.
    Three kelpies leapt off the verandah. Tate braked late and too hard and if there had been dust it would have swamped the car. The screen door smashed back into the rendered stone wall and his sister‐in‐law ran out of the house, Shasta behind her, agile despite his bulk.
    Tate climbed out of the Pajero, swung Bree off her feet, set her down with a kiss on the cheek and pumped Shasta’s hand. Christina’s door shut and she threaded a path around the bonnet.
    “Bree. Shasta. This is Christina Clay.”
    “Paddy. Get down,” Bree growled, catching the youngest dog trying to stuff its nose under Christina’s dress. It was barely older than a pup and it slunk away with its tail between its legs.
    “The dogs don’t see strangers much,” Bree apologised with a warm kiss for Christina’s cheek. She had to stoop to plant it. “It’s so good to meet you. I get so tired of talking about cattle all the time and Lord do they bang on about football out here. I love your shoes. Belfast, get t’hell out of it . All you dogs sit down .”
    Shasta’s huge hand swallowed Christina’s.
    Bree said: “Let me show you inside. You can freshen up if you’d like? Take a shower?
    I’ve done that trip a hundred times, your head must be spinning.”
    The screen door squeaked and the two women disappeared into the shadows of the hall.
    Shasta let out a low whistle. “You’re sure you want separate bedrooms?”
    “I’m sure.”
    “Mate, you must be losing your touch.”
    “Not much touch to lose.” Tate took in his brother’s feet, the thongs. “You knocked off for the day?”
    “Sunday fella, give me a break. Twist your arm for a cold one?”
    Shasta’s thongs flapped up the steps. All three dogs leapt after him, paws scratching cement verandah slabs. He shut the screen door on their red muzzles.
    It was cooler inside, dark. The only light funnelled from the door leading out to the back verandah, open at the end of the central passage like the distant exit of an underground tunnel.
    Tate sniffed. Bree had changed her furniture polish—tea‐tree oil instead of sandalwood. Everything else was the same. His mother’s antique German meatsafe—a wedding present from his grandparents forty‐five years earlier—guarded the front door, a pink‐glazed pottery bowl on its Baltic pine top. He threw the Pajero’s keys in the bowl, heard them skitter against its sides.
    Shasta’s footsteps vibrated ahead of him and he watched his brother turn through the doorway into the kitchen. That screen door still squeaked