Since we'd had no children - I couldn't any more, scars from endometriosis - we just each took what we came into the marriage with, split anything we'd made together during the marriage and ran for home. My home was in Sydney part of the time and Southern California the rest of the time. His was on his beloved cattle farm 350 miles north of Sydney out in the boondocks. The Aussie version of the boondocks anyway, the edge of the Outback. It's not even far enough out to really BE the Outback, but close enough to make the wallabies happy.

For a year or so we didn't speak. We communicated through our lawyers and our agents, and if we happened to be at the same Hollywood or Aussie function, we maintained a polite smile on our faces for as long as we were within ten yards of one another. I missed him as a friend. I'm sure he missed me as a friend. We'd always been able to share anything with each other.

When my first marriage went down the tubes in a wash of recriminations and scandals (just who WAS the father of the child I'd miscarried the month the divorce was filed? (I'd never say other than that it was my first husband's child, although he refused to believe it for his own reasons.) A lot of people thought Rusty was the dad because he and I were friends, but he firmly denied it and so did I. Funny how that became myth though and the truth was dismissed despite my swearing to it in the divorce papers. DNA testing even bore me out, but nobody knows about that except me, my first husband Joe, my doctor and Russell. I felt he should know. We did, after all, hold nothing back from one another at that time.

Anyway, I digress. I made a couple of good films right about then - the first big musical in decades, for one and a super ghost story for another. Never mind the clunker that was released right after those that had been shelved for three years by Monumental Studios because it was so bloody awful. They only released it then to cash in on my Oscar nomination. Luckily, it sank almost as fast as it opened. I hope nobody ever resurrects it.

I went home to lick my wounds and rattle around my empty house in California, got bored with that and went all the way home to Australia where at least my family was close. My sister Cassie and I - she's a confirmed spinster according to her - spent a lot of time redecorating first my condo and then hers. That took the better part of a year because when I say "redecorating" I mean we ourselves scraped paint, peeled off wallpaper, learned how to do basic things like rag painting the walls, hanging new wallpaper, hooking up new faucets - I got us both bib overalls with all the loops and those leather tool belts when we succeeded with the first of those projects. We had baseball caps that read, "Let a Woman Do It" and felt like the helpers on "Home Improvement".

Our redecorating frenzy over, I started looking at scripts again. The best one that I got was for the part of an English woman - married but unhappy - on camera safari in Africa with her husband who is a once-famous photographer who has climbed into a bottle of Scotch and lost his touch. It so happened the guide was a former lover of this woman, one she had jilted to marry the famous - and rich - photographer. The guide, famous in his own right for the books he had written about various wild animals he'd rescued and returned to the wild, had never gotten over the woman. Imagine his chagrin - and hers! - when his clients turned out to be none other than English woman and photographer hubby.

The story had a lot of good plot points, a lot of great repressed sexuality and one or two humdinger love scenes that, if they left them in the film, would no doubt earn it an "R" rating for sure, but heck, there's nothing wrong with making a non-kiddie film in my book.

I told my agent I really liked this one and to set the wheels in motion on it. Then I found out the guide had already been cast and it was Russell. Shit. I debated long hours over whether to pass on it after all, but I really wanted to do the film. I'd always wanted to see Africa's wild animals, for one thing, and the script was just so right for me. In the end, I said "yes" and eventually found myself face to face with my ex-husband at a cocktail party a month or so before I was due to leave to go on location.

I was at the bar getting a drink - I think it was a wine fizzer, that's my usual if I want to sip a drink a long time so nobody thinks I'm teetotal - and when I turned with the tall glass in my hand, I crashed right into an almost immovable bulk of a man who for some damn reason was standing so close behind me he was practically sharing my shoes with me. "Shit!" I snapped, the drink sloshing over both of us. "What's your problem?" I asked, then blinked and realized who it was. "Oh, for crying out loud - not you again." I brushed droplets of white wine off my fingers and prepared to move Stage Right to walk around him.

"Yeah, me - sorry, luv," he said, and he moved in front of me again so I was stuck in place once more. "Don't run off," he said in his "I'm the big macho boss" tone that I knew so well. He leaned across me and got a Jack Daniels on the rocks. Then, when he had his drink in hand, he simply grasped my upper arm in his big right paw, er, hand, and led me to a somewhat dimly lighted corner where some empty chairs were. "Sit," he said firmly.

"Woof!" I barked, teasing him. I sat though - it wasn't worth the argument that would no doubt start if I didn't do as he asked. Besides, we had been close close friends for years before, maybe, I thought, we could get back to that again? God knew, I'd missed being able to talk to him lo these many months. "All right, all right," I waved a hand at him, "What's so bloody important that you broke the invisible barrier and talked to me?"

"Invisible barrier?" he asked, clearly puzzled. He was still standing, looming over me, and he knew that annoyed the crap out of me because I was really half an inch taller than he is. I could see from a quirk of his lips that he was very aware of it.

I drew back my fist and socked him in the belly. Nobody else saw but he sure felt it.

"Ow! What the bloody blazes was that for?" he asked, rubbing the neat silk and wool gabardine front of his tuxedo pants right below the waist. "Shit, Jackie, you've still got a helluva sharp fist, girl." But he sat down in the empty chair beside me.

"That was for being Mister Macho, and see? It worked, now you're being nice." I sipped the wine spritzer and winked at him over the rim of my glass. "So, what did you want?" We had no legalities pending that I knew of, everything long since settled amicably, so I was sure it had to do with the film.

"I heard you've booked my film," he started out. Getting to the point has never been a problem for Rusty.

"Your film?" I asked with the proper amount of amazement at the terminology, "I thought Bobby Richardson was directing and Dreamworks was producing?"

He waved a hand impatiently, "They are, you know very fucking well what I meant, Jax. Did you know I was signed for it when you accepted their offer?"

I studied his face. I knew most, if not all, of his facial tics and expressions by now. After all, he'd picked up some of them as a direct result of the time we'd spent married. Some of the silver hair that sparked at his temples now was no doubt also my work. It looked wonderful on him though, damn him. "I knew," I admitted. I sipped again, using the action as a way to delay the explosion I was sure was coming.

"Jax - why now? I just finally got over - well, everything. And now, here you are, costarring in this film with me and we'll have this passionate affair in it." He raked one big hand through his longish wavy hair, a gesture as familiar to me as if it were me doing it and not him. I tamped firmly down on my feelings, told myself he was a jerk and a cad and an egotist. That's somewhat like trying to control lust by picturing something horrid. It didn't work any better than that either.

I shrugged and told the truth, "Because I love the script - I can play her, she's got a lot of me in her."

He made an exasperated noise, "Well, that's not surprising, is it? The bloody role was written for you, Jax!"

"There is that consideration," I said off-handedly. I pretended to ponder things, then suggested, "You could get me fired, I suppose, get someone else to do it. I heard Julia Roberts is looking for a project." I hid another smile behind my hand as he made gagging noises.

"You know fucking well I'll never get close to her again unless I'm forced to by a team of Clydesdales."

I couldn't help it, I giggled then. He knew when he heard it that I was having him on and he scowled at me, brows drawn down over the famous blue-green eyes. "Jax, I wish you'd bloody get over this thing you have about teasing me."

I looked up, grinning at him, "But, Rusty - it's so fucking much fun!"

He made another growling sound that I recognized as his, "No use fighting it" noise. "All right, all right then - we'll make the fucking film, but if you try picking fights with me during it, I swear I'll feed you to the crocodiles or the first hungry lion that walks by!"

I put on my most innocent face. "Why Russell, whatever would make you think I'd pick a fight with you, you big strong man you?"

He made the growling noise again, raked both hands through his hair and stalked off. We didn't talk again until we met up in Africa three and a half weeks later. By then, I had had time to think of things I knew would drive him crazy, and also some that would make him tame as a little kitten. It never hurts to have more than one pistol in the gun case, I always say.

The first day on the set, a lion got loose from its handlers and knocked him on his ass with the cameras rolling.

It was only a harbinger of things to come.