Daniel has borrowed his brother's car and set out on a long
drive through the Australian outback. He's got the Goth
look, so the locals think he's weird. What they don't know
is that he's a recovering drug addict, determined to stay
clean. The long stretches of asphalt with nothing but red
dust and the odd cockatoo should give him time to think,
but he finds himself almost scared by the heat and
isolation, and he's not fully prepared for the night time
cold on the way to THE RED HEART and Uluru.
Sam, a solitary drover, is walking and hitching along the
Stuart Highway and builds a campfire near Daniel's car for
warmth. Sam knows a station nearby where the two get a
solid breakfast in return for work, and the practical,
hospitable people tell Daniel he looks like a vampire and
puts a hat and plaid shirt on him to keep him from burning
and so he won't scare the cattle. A day's work helps the
lad to feel better about himself, and from a few friendly
jeers he gathers that Sam is gay, though nobody cares as
long as the work gets done. But as a former soldier Sam
has difficulties in his past too, and maybe Daniel is mad
for even getting interested?
Isabelle Rowan has given us a quiet, atmospheric tale of
sun and strangers, of diesel and dust, and the two men
taking off on foot to cross country to the great red rock
makes the biggest challenge Daniel has faced before or
after leaving Melbourne. We all need a challenge and a
change at times, and who knows what we can overcome until
we put our minds to it? Try THE RED HEART, an understated
adult romance, to inspire you to get outdoors this
summer.
An ex-soldier and an urban Goth walk into a desert. It
sounds like the start of a joke, but for Sam Collins and
Daniel Evans, it is the beginning of their story. Daniel
walks to shed his drug-filled past and make himself whole.
But Sam, who hides the demons of war behind a smile, needs
Daniel more than either man knows. An old stockman’s wisdom
sends them on their journey together, a long hard road to
find Australia’s sacred Red Heart and—perhaps—each other.
Excerpt
A DUSTY green station wagon sat at the side of the
desert road. It had half a tank of fuel, the radiator was
full, and the car would start if the key was turned in the
ignition. But still it sat there while the sun sank orange
and red below the never ending horizon.
Daniel Evans sat on the roof of the station wagon he'd
stolen from his twin brother. There was no malice in the
theft. Quite the opposite. He loved his brother and knew his
love was returned, so after a very long conversation that
had stretched late into the night, Daniel knew Steven would
understand him "borrowing" the car.
The last arch of the sun shimmered, then disappeared,
leaving a final glow to radiate from the horizon and slowly
fade until the stars shone through. Daniel lay back. The
roof of the car buckled, but popped back into shape. It was
hot through the thin fabric of his T–shirt and burned
the exposed skin of his arms, but Daniel didn't care. It was
good to feel something.
The air cooled quickly under the cloudless night sky.
Daniel raised his hand and stared at the stars through his
silhouetted fingers. He couldn't remember there ever being
that many stars. The fingers closed and opened again around
the half moon. It was the same moon he saw every night in
Melbourne, except that night, it seemed a little lost in the
endless expanse of stars. Daniel closed his hand into a fist
and sat up.
The road stretched in front of him, straight, unbroken,
until it was swallowed by the night.
Daniel slid down to the hood, then swung his long legs
over to stand beside the car. He leaned in through the
driver's side window and turned the key enough to reignite
the headlights. The beams lit up the asphalt and reflected
off the broken white line. He walked to the front of the car
and stared at his elongated shadow. It looked as wrong as
he'd felt for a very long time.
"Tomorrow," he muttered, got into the driver's seat, and
turned the car back to the small town at the edge of the desert.
"HEY luv, back again? I'm pleased you decided not to
tackle the drive tonight. Very wise. Take the same room, and
I'll have the key waiting for you at reception when you're
ready to go up," Maeve, the elderly pub owner, said from
behind the bar. "Can I tempt you with dinner this time?" She
lifted a menu with its very short list of counter meals and
smiled.
"No thank you," Daniel said politely. "Just an orange
juice, please."
"You know you're not going to last long out there if we
don't get some meat on your bones," she teased, but Daniel
just smiled and counted out the money for his drink.
The few other patrons watched him walk to a table in a
corner. Their pub was the last one before a big stretch of
desert road, so they were used to the occasional visitor,
but not ones that looked like Daniel. With his
Goth–pale skin, long straight blue–black hair,
and myriad of tattoos, he attracted few looks on the streets
of Melbourne, but just over the border of the Northern
Territory, he might as well have been from another planet.
"Escaped from a horror movie," he heard one mutter but
didn't take offense. That was exactly what he looked like
compared to the leather–skinned old men nursing beers
at the bar.
"That's enough of that, Bill. Each to their own," Maeve
scolded as she walked past him with Daniel's juice. "Ignore
them. They gossip like old women at times."
Daniel smiled and took the drink. The juice was sharp on
his tongue and chilled the path to his empty belly, but he
quickly downed half the glass.
The old men lost interest in the weird guy from the city
as soon as Maeve put a set of darts in front of them and
announced, "The winner gets free drinks for the rest of the
night."
Daniel leaned back against the wall and began to watch
their game, with its good–natured ribbing and a whole
lot of cheating. By the call for a "double twenty," the
chatter had dissolved into background buzz and Daniel's
focus wavered. Faces of the players lost their definition
and the melody of a song he sang at school seduced his lids
shut and dragged him into a dream of dancing brolgas and
bandicoots.... We'll have to jog along, it's getting late....
The line from the song echoed and became more insistent.
"Come on, luv. It's late."
Daniel blinked and looked up at the barmaid. "I'm sorry,
I...."
"You look done in. I think it might be time to head
upstairs to your room. Your key is still at reception."
The old men were back at the bar, their game over.
Daniel straightened up in his seat, his head still so full
of clouds that he stared blindly into the room, not
realizing he was looking directly at a man eagerly
shovelling a last forkful of shepherd's pie into his mouth.
The man looked up and, still chewing, shot him a cheeky wink.
Daniel stared for another few seconds, not quite
comprehending that he was awake, then forced his lips into
an embarrassed smile before looking away. He leaned forward
onto the table and scrubbed his hands over his face until
the threads of thoughts connected into coherent patterns.
Finally the promise of clean sheets and a soft mattress
dragged him to his feet. His first step was a little shaky,
but Daniel knew it was simply the toll of the
long–haul drive, and if he made it up the stairs, he
might actually sleep an entire night.
The door lock was the next challenge, and Daniel's numb
fingers fumbled with the old–fashioned key. It missed
the lock, then didn't seem to match the tumblers once it was
in. He'd managed it earlier, but in his exhausted state, the
lock and the door to his room at The Drover's Arms seemed to
conspire against him. Daniel's forehead fell against the
metal number on the door; the point of the "one" jabbed into
his skin. He took a tired breath.
"Jiggle it," a voice said from behind. "It's an old
building and gets cranky."
Startled, Daniel staggered back a step, but the other
man merely smiled and tried the lock. With a little wiggle
of the key and push of the door, it opened.
"There you go. Sleep well, mate—you look like you
need it." Another wink and the man continued on his way down
the corridor.
Daniel watched until he turned the corner, then stepped
into his room. He mustered the last of his energy to tackle
the long laces of his Doc Marten boots and the grip of his
tight jeans before falling onto the bed.
It took a minute or two for the tension in his muscles
to let go. The mental image of himself deflating inch by
inch slowly gave his body permission to relax. Toes first,
then feet, legs, hips... the clench of his gut was more
stubborn. Daniel filled his lungs with air and slowly
exhaled. Repeat it if you need to. Daniel did as he'd been
taught and enough of the knots unravelled so that he slowly
sank into the mattress.
He hadn't slept the night before. Arguments and promises
fought for attention in his thoughts, only to be usurped by
fear. Fear that he wouldn't succeed, and fear that he would.
Don't start this again. Tension crept back into his
body. Daniel forced his thoughts out to the road. The long
unending stretch of asphalt bordered on both sides by the
low scrub of the desert; not red yet, but that would come.
The childhood refrain was there again in his head as he
mentally travelled the road and "The Drover's Dream" lulled
him to sleep.
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