His Brand of Beautiful by Lily Malone

morning. I know she’s lying. I offered to have him here this July for the school holidays. Said I’d pay for the ticket, meet him in Adelaide. We could fly up. I thought I’d teach him to drive the Pajero, you know? He’s old enough and I thought he’d think it’d be cool. Guess what she said?”
    “What?”
    “Why would Ben want to spend his holidays in a hell‐hole with no Broadband when he could be chasing girls at Manly Beach with his mates?” Shasta mimicked Alicia’s voice and it sounded like Darth Vader doing Shirley Temple. “Sometimes I wish I’d married Alicia, you know? Courts pay more attention to a father when he’s a husband. Least if I married her, I could have got the satisfaction of divorcing the snaky bitch.”
    “You’re talking about Alicia again.” Bree bustled into the kitchen and disappeared into the depths of the huge pantry. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell Christina you’d be gone overnight, Tate? She’s got nothing with her. No fresh clothes, no pajamas, no... Not even a toothbrush… just plain rude.” Her words faded in and out, she probably had her head in a storage box.
    Tate called towards the pantry: “It won’t hurt her to wear the same clothes two days running.”
    Bree emerged like a salesgirl in a beauty shop, slender arms overflowing with bottles, packets and potions. “It won’t hurt you to be more considerate. Women have needs.” She swept from the kitchen, reddish curls bouncing. “Moisturiser is but one.”
    “You woulda thought it was Christmas when I told Bree you were bringing a girl up here,” Shasta drawled. “Never brought us a lady client to visit before.”
    “She’s not my client. Not yet. My jury’s still out. She runs her family’s winery and she wants me to consult on a new brand.”
    “Last I looked that was your bread and butter, what’s the problem?”
    “She thinks she wants something outdoorsy and wild.”
    “You make it sound like she wants a wolf for a lap dog.”
    Tate shrugged. “You’ve seen her, what do you reckon? She’s about as outdoorsy as Ivana Trump in Steve Irwin’s khakis. Brands have to be believable.”
    “Hmm. And if any woman’s gonna stow her slippers under your bed for more than a couple of months, she has to be wild. I get it.”

    “You don’t get shit,” he said to Shasta with just a touch of heat. “Christina’s about as wild as my fucking backyard.”
    “Ah, but you could dig that whole garden out. Start again,” Shasta said, folding his arms, beer bottle glistening in the crook of his elbow. “Or sell the damn house. You even unpacked those boxes yet?”
    Tate shook his head. “It’s close to the office.”
    “It’s a fucking monstrosity.”
    “That monstrosity has won architecture awards.”
    Shasta grinned. “So has my dick.”
    Tate spluttered around his beer. “ Jesus .”
    “Her shoes are sure wild,” Shasta said, staring all the way down his hairy shins to his thongs.
    “You should have seen the looks they gave her at Coober Pedy airport.”
    They both laughed. Sunlight angled low into the room, through eight‐paned timber windows, turned spinning dust motes orange‐gold.
    “So what’s the problem with working for her, other than she’s not wildcat enough for you? You don’t want to get mixed‐up with a client again?”
    “That’s part of it,” Tate admitted. The weekend he’d taken Lila camping in the Flinders, she’d been attacked by sandflies and ended up at Hawker hospital on a diet of anti-histamine and hysterics. Since then, Outback to Lila was best served as a brand of pergola.
    She wasn’t alone. He’d only met two other women he liked enough in the last ten years to want to share with them the Australia he loved. Both had been wildly enthusiastic planning for the trip, both toasted marshmallows like champions that first night beneath the stars. By four o’clock the next day, they started begging him to take them home. Not with words, exactly. But