Hide And Seek

Chapter 1

A Bird came down the Walk —

He did not know I saw —

~ Emily Dickinson

Hope Buchanan heard the canvas creak as someone lifted the flap of the bird hide and came inside. She didn’t turn around. Not…now. Not when she’d been waiting, almost motionless, for over an hour. Not when the bowerbird had just appeared.

Her hand tensed on the camera as the person squeezed next to her onto the wooden bench that faced the screened observation window. Camouflaged from the outside with leaves and branches, so the birds wouldn’t suspect they were under surveillance, inside the bird hide were simple wooden walls, the bench, and a large tin box that held their equipment. There was barely room for one person, let alone two. They were pressed together as tightly as if they were in a tent.

A male, she took in from a sideways glance at the tanned, muscled thigh that lay close to hers. She caught his aftershave. Usually she hated the scent of cologne on a man. This smelled different; a clean, leathery kind of smell that blended with the humid, tropical scents that never really disappeared in Broome, even now, in September, at the end of the dry season.

Normally if someone came into the hide, she’d exchange a smile, perhaps compare a few field notes; whisper about what had been happening in the observation area. Not this time. She sensed this man was a stranger, but she didn’t look at him. Not now. Not now.

That’s right, my beauty, she urged silently, as the bird moved tentatively towards the water bowl. Have a sip of water. Then pick it up.

As if obeying her silent instructions, the bird drank. This particular species wasn’t the most beautiful bowerbird in the world. While it didn’t have the bright coloured, fancy feathers of some of the other birds that flew in, Hope knew how special it really was. A dull brownish grey speckled colour that no one would notice at first, it had a stunning hot pink crest at the back of its neck.

The bird jerked its head around curiously, and spying the booty she’d left, went slowly, so slowly, to take up the shell in its beak. Turning its head, the pink plumage appeared.

Her finger poised, ready to click.

Then the cell phone rang.

Hope shrieked. So did the bowerbird. With a harsh raucous cry, it flew away, its wings flapping.

The camera slipped from her fingers as she leapt to her feet. ‘Turn off your phone!’

To his credit, he moved fast. Jumping up, he caught her camera in one hand before it hit the dusty ground and dropped it onto the bench, before reaching into the pocket of his black cargo shorts. Pulling out his cell phone he flicked a switch.

White teeth flashed in a grin as he rubbed his brown hair. ‘I thought it was on vibrate.’

He had a US accent, and he was tall, around six foot three, so tall he almost reached the corrugated tin roof of the bird hide. Hope was tall too, but she only came up to his nose as she faced him.

‘You thought it was on vibrate? That’s all you can say? Do you know what you’ve done? Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for that bird to come here? Months!’

Fury heaved through her. The stranger shot a glance at her white t-shirt, down to her shabby khaki shorts and bare legs, before going back up again to her irate face.

‘Don’t you know better than to bring a phone into a bird hide?’

‘I’ve never been in a bird hide before.’ His eyes crinkled at the corners as she sensed he hid another smile. ‘I didn’t know there’d be so much…squawking…’

‘Oooh!’

Hope grabbed the camera and threw back the canvas flap. Outside, the humid air slapped into her skin as she made for the path through the gum trees.

‘Wait!’

Spinning on the heel of her boot sent the fine red dirt flying.

‘What?’

Ducking his head he came out and stepped towards her. She saw now that his hair held burns of gold and rust, as though he spent a lot of time out of doors. Fine feathers. The thought flashed into her mind.

He spread out his hands. They were huge, like the rest of him. His arms too were covered with those fine golden hairs that glinted in the harsh sun, outlining their bare muscled strength up to the point they were hidden by a white shirt with the sleeves rolled back. ‘Hey, I can see you’re angry, but…’

‘You’re right I’m angry! Bowerbirds are rare and they only build their bowers around this time of the year. Soon it will be too wet for them. That one had the most amazing crest, and I’d just got the angle right. I wanted that photo for our publicity campaign. He was going to be our pin up bird.’

‘Your…pin up bird?’ This time he didn’t even try to hide a smile. His broad shoulders shook with laughter.

‘It’s not funny!’ Hope flung at him. ‘I’m trying to save this place, and we need everything we can to do it. Do you have any idea what it’s like trying to keep a bird sanctuary going? We’re being built out from every direction, houses, offices, hotels, you name it. There’s going to be nowhere for the birds to go soon.’

‘Surely there’ll be another chance for a photo of your…pin up…’

‘I doubt it.’ Clenching her hands around the camera strap she stepped forward. ‘Have you ever seen that Alfred Hitchcock movie, The Birds?’

He looked startled. ‘Is that the one with the blonde woman in it, when all those gulls attack her?’

Hope nodded. ‘That’s the one.’ Gritting her teeth she hissed: ‘Now you know exactly what I wish would happen to you.’

With another cloud of dust, she stalked away.

‘Hope. Are you listening?’

‘Sorry.’ She turned to look at Gavin passing out pamphlets around the group.

He pushed his glasses back up on his nose. ‘We’ve got to do something about this. This time, they’ve gone too far.’

Hope opened the thick, glossy pamphlet that must have cost more to produce than the Hot Tropics Bird Sanctuary spent on their publicity budget in a year. ‘Broome is like a beautiful woman with a mysterious past.’

‘What?’ asked Gavin.

‘That’s a line from their pamphlet.’ Hope waved it. ‘Shall I read it aloud?’

‘Oh yes, do,’ urged Sadie.

‘O’Dare Luxury Developments are always ahead of the game,’ read Hope. ‘That’s why O’Dare has chosen Broome, Australia for our next new luxury resort. South sea pearls. Pink diamonds. Breathtaking beaches. Stunning scenery. Tropical weather. Broome is the ultimate in glamour and luxury today. Crowded, polluted tourist destinations are out. Secret hideaways are in.’

‘Wow. They’re good at publicity,’ Sadie said.

‘Too good.’ Hope studied the cover of the brochure. The photograph showed a luxury hotel on a beachfront, with shimmering white sand and turquoise water.

Photos. She was still fuming over what had happened earlier that day. She’d needed to nail that publicity photo of the bowerbird. Hot Tropics didn’t have the money for the kind of professional shots featured in the brochure she held. That man! What had he been doing in the bird hide with his cell phone on? What had he been doing there at all? Who was he?

For a moment his image flashed into her brain: those big hands, that flashing grin.

Her grip made the pamphlet damp. It was hot tonight, so hot she felt she’d be better outside, even if the humidity still soared so high it turned her long brown hair into a wild mass of ringlets. Inside the bird sanctuary office, only one small desk fan rotated slowly in the corner. It had no effect at all with the entire committee of six squeezed into the room.

‘This is the latest sales brochure from O’Dare Luxury Developments.’ Gavin drew his chair closer to Hope’s and she shifted away. Sometimes she wished Gavin’s beard, sandals and good intentions appealed to her more. An environmental scientist, they couldn’t do without him on the Hot Tropics team. But he didn’t appeal to her, and to be honest, she felt a bit wary of him. A few months back, there’d been a moment out on an observation trip, sitting around the campfire, when he’d been more attentive than she’d liked.

‘As you know, we’ve been fighting to stop the town council making another land release up here,’ Gavin went on now. ‘But O’Dare has been fighting hard too. We’ve got to get more public support.’

‘I think most people in the town are on our side,’ Hope disagreed. ‘There are lots of people around here who care about protecting our wildlife, just like we do. I’ve said it again and again; it’s the O’Dare management we’ve got to target.’

Across the table her friend Sadie nodded her head. Her hair was even wilder than Hope’s, though in Sadie’s case it was the result of a frizzy perm; a style she’d favoured for years, along with loose batik print dresses. One of the few members of the committee who’d grown up in Broome, she’d been part of Hot Tropics since it began. Many of the members, like Hope and Gavin, and a few other people who’d moved to Broome after retirement, were newcomers.

‘Have you heard?’ Sadie asked. ‘Did you know that one of the O’Dare brothers has just flown into town?’

Hope tensed. ‘Which brother?’

‘Sullivan O’Dare.’

The name burnt her lips as she repeated it silently to herself. Oh, Hope knew that name, all too well. For months she’d been bombarding his office in New York with emails, faxes and letters. She’d never received the courtesy of a single reply.

‘You mean he’s in town? He’s come to Broome?’

Sadie nodded. ‘He flew in yesterday, in a fancy private plane. It seems he’s a pilot. He’s staying at the Cable Beach Hotel in one of the bungalows. My sister Ruth was on her shift at reception.’

A pilot. Hope fought down the pain that rose up inside her chest. It never went away, that pain. The memories flared before she forced them away.

With a force of will she dragged her attention back to Sadie. ‘What’s he doing here?’

‘The word is he’s come to make a personal appearance at the town planning meeting tonight.’

Hope could just imagine the personal appearance of Sullivan O’Dare, a sleek corporate fat cat. He’d be around fifty-years-old, she imagined, with a pot belly and grey hair tied back in a ponytail, holding on to his youth with designer sunglasses and a trophy wife.

Instantly she leapt to her feet. ‘What time’s the meeting?’

Gavin stroked his beard. ‘It usually starts at seven, doesn’t it?’

A quick glance at her watch told her she’d have to hurry, but she could just make it. Luckily the bird sanctuary was less than an hour’s drive from the centre of Broome.

‘Hope…’ Sadie warned, as Hope grabbed the keys to her Land Rover, ‘you know you can’t go to the council meeting without permission. Remember what happened last time.’

‘I don’t care.’ Hope pushed back her curls. ‘I’m going to that meeting tonight.’ Widening her eyes in mock innocence, she added, ‘I just want to welcome Sullivan O’Dare.’

Hope crouched behind a hibiscus bush and peered through the council office window. Inside, she could see the backs of heads in seated rows, and hear the murmur of voices. She caught a glimpse of a screen at the front of the room, and the flicker of images; a PowerPoint presentation, she surmised. A tall man standing at the other end of the room made a dark silhouette against the light of the projector. She couldn’t discern his features.

Ducking her head down, her lips curved in triumph. It had to be him. Well, well well. Mr Sullivan O’Dare. You can run, but you can’t hide.

But she had a problem. Hope released a gusty sigh. She couldn’t go through the front door of the council office, like any other normal person could. Not after what had happened at the council meeting the previous month, when she’d been ejected for protesting when she didn’t have the floor. She’d been banned from attending meetings.

The recollection of the incident still made her cringe. Hot Tropics had tried to stage a sit-in. It hadn’t been one of their better ideas, and it wasn’t really Hope’s style. But with Gavin and Sadie all fired up, she’d gone along with it, found herself sitting cross-legged on the carpet, then forced off the premises being threatened by the security guard. It hadn’t been her finest hour; she really wasn’t into that sort of thing. But what could she do?

Hope had only come to Broome for a holiday. She’d arrived in the tropical town at the north west of Australia, and fallen in love with its stunning beaches and sultry mangroves, its moody, monsoonal climate, and most of all, the birds, the rare, beautiful birds who came back, year after year, but in numbers that were fewer and fewer. She’d never expected to become an environmental campaigner, yet as soon as she’d spent time watching those soaring wings in the sky, she’d known she had to save them.

Lifting strands of hair from her neck to cool her skin she considered her options. No matter how she did it, she had to get inside the council chambers. She had no choice.

She reached up to the window. Her fingertips told her it was a sliding one, and luckily, open. With one hand she slipped the glass back along the rubber tracks as silently as she could, suppressing a chuckle. If anyone could see her from inside the room, it would look like a horror movie, with her ghostly fingers appearing from nowhere in the night.

To her relief, the glass pushed back well enough, but then there was the flyscreen to deal with. She frowned. Tearing or cutting the mesh: no. Too noisy, and she didn’t want to damage council property. She wasn’t a hooligan. Not daring to put her head up in case anyone saw her, she fumbled around for a moment until she found the rubber strip that held the mesh in place. After a bit of wiggling, it came free. Easing it away, she rolled it across the bottom and up the side.

The gap was small, but she could do it.

She heaved herself up, scraping her bare legs on the outer brick wall. Clambering onto the narrow window ledge, she squeezed herself through the flyscreen gap, teetered, and fell inside onto the carpet.

‘Ow!’ Hope cursed herself for letting out a cry of pain.

It didn’t matter that anyone heard.

As she looked up to find a circle of horrified faces staring