Watcher's Web by Patty Jansen Read Free Book Online

sandy bottom until her body shone pale in the
low light.
    When she
turned to clamber out, Brian was awake and watching her.
    She
gasped and jumped up into a crouch, covering herself with her arms.
He couldn’t have seen anything. She had no boobs to speak of
anyway. She didn’t even have the hairy bits you-know-where.
There was nothing to see. She was ugly
and boyish and bony.
    Yet he was
staring.
    She stared
back, her heart hammering. Here she was, naked, alone in the forest
with a strange man. He might be exhausted, but she was a
seventeen-year-old girl and a grown man would have no trouble
getting from her what he wanted.
    Brian
didn’t move. He sat there, leaning back on his hands, his legs
stretched in front of him and crossed at the ankles. Damn, she
couldn’t see his crotch—that would be a dead giveaway. Why was he
doing this? She needed him
if they had to climb more boulders tomorrow. She didn’t want to go
alone, but she bloody well didn’t trust him as far as she could
throw him.
    He said
nothing, and Jessica stayed in the water, just the top of her
shoulders exposed. The air was getting nippy. A drop of water
plinked into the pool, and a moment later, another one.
    Great. It was
raining.
    Eventually she
asked. “Would you mind?”
    “What?”
    “I’d like to
get out.”
    “Oh. Sorry.”
His voice was warm, bemused, but maybe she only imagined that.
    He turned
sideways, but not quite enough for her to be sure he wasn’t
watching. She crab-walked to the bank, grabbed her shirt and pulled
it over her head wet and cold. Then she crawled out of the water
and angled for her other clothes. God, those undies stank, but her
clean ones were in her backpack which sat exposed on the bank.
Bugger. She pulled the dirty ones on as quickly as possible.
Getting into her jeans with wet legs was harder, but she managed
it. What now? Go back to him and . . . what?
    “Brian?”
    “Yes.”
    An uneasy
silence.
    Then he said,
“Come and sit here. I’m not going to harm you.”
    Suspicion rose. They all said that. Sex wasn’t supposed to
hurt, was it? And if they enjoyed it, the girl should enjoy it,
too. Never mind that she had never enjoyed the feel of a sweating
male body against hers. Men stank and they hurt her. All of them.
God, that Luke at John Braithwaithe’s farm had been a beast. Women like it
rough, he had said,
and, knowing little better, she had put up with it for far too
long. Problem was, he was nice during the day, and he paid for
trips to resorts up the coast and even Thailand. He made her feel
accepted.
    God, she
didn’t even like resorts.
    And where he
got the money was still a mystery to her.
    Vulnerable
women attracted abusive, manipulative men.
    She called
back through the forest, “There is a soft patch of moss here. I’ll
sleep here tonight.”
    Silence.
    “I’m sorry if
I upset you,” he said. “I was just curious.”
    Curious
about what?
    “I didn’t mean
to disturb you . . . Jessica.” That was the first time
he’d used her name.
    Well,
you were disturbing me.
    Jessica
sat down, a comfortable distance from him, her legs folded before
her as if ready to spring. She didn’t know whether to keep watching
him or to turn away. She wanted to do both, to make sure he
couldn’t sneak up on her, to make sure he didn’t interpret her
watching him as interest. She was finished with men.
    He continued,
“I want to thank you. You seem to be well-trained for this
situation, this . . . forest.”
    “I’ve done a
lot of bushwalking.”
    Another
silence. He shifted; leaves rustled. “Where were you
travelling?”
    Why was he so
talkative all of a sudden?
    “Just to
Sydney.”
    “Family there
or . . .”
    “No family. I
go to school there.” Maybe she shouldn’t have said that. Next thing
he’d want to know what school. But he didn’t.
    More drops
were now trickling from the tree canopy. The uneasy silence
lingered. A twinge of shame crept through her. All day, they had
helped