Chapter 2
‘What about my case?’ Jaime regarded the panniers on the V-Max with despair. There was no way she was going to fit a tote bag of clothes in those things, let alone a large suitcase.
‘Just grab a few clothes, then send the rest up on the truck.’
Marble Man had turned the bike off again while she dithered. He now seemed furious. His words were forced through clenched teeth and he kept glancing towards the huge mountains she could see towering over the town.
She swallowed and snatched at her case, which she’d left sitting on the footpath. She’d figured there wasn’t much chance of it being stolen in this dozy little joint. ‘I simply must have my hair dryer. And a spare bikini,’ she said as she flung the bulging case on the ground and crouched to unzip it.
The lid sprang open with gusto, flinging bras and knickers across the street. Floral lace and black satin decorated the path like delicate street art. Oh God. What must the man be thinking of her now? She scrabbled to stuff everything back inside the suitcase, all the while aware of a piercing glare on her back.
‘You might want this one?’
She spun on her heels. Marble Man held her favourite red G-string up with a pointer finger. His face was still exuding animosity, but she thought she could detect a tiny quirk at the edge of his pursed lips.
This was going from very bad to downright mortifying.
She mustered all the dignity she could, got up and tried to grab the scrap of satin from his grasp. He snatched it away as quick as a red-bellied black snake. She wondered if his bite was as deadly.
‘Say please.’
What? Oh, for crap’s sake. The man wanted to play now?
‘Just give me the G-string, Stirling,’ she said, proud her voice came out just like she’d wanted it to – cool and calm with a hint of insolence. No panic, no stress, not even a squeak.
His dark eyebrows arched in surprise at her use of his name. For some reason that gave her a frisson of pleasure. Ha! Nothing like a bit of girl power. After all, what did he expect? A simpering little city chick ready to fall at his feet? She’d show him she wasn’t a woman, or doll, to be ordered around. She held out her hand imperiously. Beckoned for the lingerie with a fluttering of her fingers.
‘I said, say please. Don’t they teach manners in the big bad city of Melbourne?’
She sucked in a breath, threw back her shoulders and tried to stand tall, which was a bit hard in flat shoes. ‘I’ll have you know I went to one of the finest private schools, best university and, yes, my parents did teach me manners, unlike yours. Now give me my G-string.’
He still didn’t hand it over.
Jaime clenched her teeth, rolled her eyes and purred, ‘Pleeeeassse …’ Anything to get the damn thing off him and back in the case where it belonged.
He flung the dainty scrap in her direction, cast another look at the black ominous clouds shifting and swirling overhead, and said, ‘You better choose your stuff quick. Leave the rest with Blue. We’ve got to go now unless you want to get wet. It’ll take us an hour to get to the Gap.’
His eyes arrowed in on her clinging top and then just as quickly shifted away. She’d swear he’d coloured a little, but just then he pulled his helmet over his head. Hmmm … interesting. Maybe Mr Stirling wasn’t made of marble after all?
Jaime sat on the speeding motorbike, curled in behind the man’s back. His broad and hard, very male back. She was grateful for its bulk and warmth because it had got cold quickly. Very chilly, in fact. She was sure she’d seen a drop or two of rain on her helmet visor until the wind whipped it away. The big black machine under her throbbed with power as it bowled along, eating up the tar and the miles as they climbed the hills out of Lake Grace.
Six weeks ago, while sitting with her friends and sipping an espresso on Lygon Street, this was the last place she’d imagined she’d be. Of course that was before the big R, and when she’d fitted in with her girlfriends as they all sat tapping on their smartphones and iPads, discussing the latest in apps. Her new prepaid mobile didn’t even work in this godforsaken place.
But somehow, just at this moment, none of that seemed to matter, because despite the cold, she could feel the crisp and clean wind blowing against her face (she’d risked pulling up her visor), and the most incredible mountain range was splayed out on both sides of the road. A river, with green and gold flats abutting its banks, snaked its way across the valley floor way down below them. The green-blue mountains above were shrouded in grey and fluffy cottonballs of cloud. As they flew along, she felt she could reach out and touch the gum trees, the rocks, the hills and the bush speeding past. She hadn’t felt this free and so close to nature in a long time.
She tried to think how long, and was shocked to realise the last time was when her father had taken her fishing on Christmas Day out near Healesville.
The day before he died. She choked back a sob.
The man in front must have felt something because he tapped her on her leg tucked in behind his and signalled with his hand, Are you okay?
No, she wasn’t okay. Would never be okay with her father’s death. But somehow she just had to push through it. She signalled back, hoping he got the message. Yeah, sure.
It was about then that the bike started to weave and sweep around the corners that led up through the mountain range towards Burdekin’s Gap. Stirling leant into the corners and rode the machine with a dexterity even she, a novice, could appreciate. She found herself pushed hard up against him, her limbs instinctively reacting to the deft weave of the bike, her body moving as one with his. The only thing holding her on was the clutch of her thighs against his and the clasp of her hands around his waist. It was an awesome feeling. She closed her eyes and just went with the flow of man and bike.
All too soon it was over. The motorbike was slowing down in front of a cute-looking general store with a bull-nosed verandah and twin colonial windows facing the road. The shop’s outside lights were glowing a welcome in the early evening air.
Just as Stirling pulled the bike up in front of the building, the heavens opened, sending down the heaviest rain Jaime had ever been in. It was coming in sheets and she wondered why the hell the man in front of her wasn’t getting off the bike.
A voice came from under the shelter of the verandah. ‘You’ll have to get off first, love, so he can keep it balanced!’
Shit. Of course. Silly her.
She stood up and bailed off the bike before doing a runner to the shelter of the verandah, pulling off her helmet as she went.
Stirling unclipped one of his bike’s panniers and threw it across to the bloke who’d come up to stand next to her. Thankfully the man caught it rather than dropping it into the rapidly forming puddle at Jaime’s feet. Stirling gave a little nod, revved the V-Max and rode off.
Like, far out. What was it with this place?
‘Guess that means you’re staying here?’ said the bloke beside her.
Jaime turned to see a wicked pair of blue eyes peering out from under a floppy fringe of blond hair and regarding her with interest. Aha. Now this sort of man she could handle.
She flicked her locks back across her shoulders, refusing to think of the helmet hairdo she must be sporting, fluttered her lashes and made an effort to look wide-eyed. ‘And you would be?’
‘I’m Ryan Morley.’
‘So you’re Ryan!’
‘I knew my reputation was good, but I didn’t think it was that good. Tell me, what did you hear? I like to know if my talents are slipping.’
The man’s eyes twinkled as they stared at her. He looked to be about her age and Jaime watched as his expression of kindness turned to male interest. She smiled inwardly. Obviously the helmet hadn’t done any serious damage. But then she realised he was looking lower. The overalls had come undone in the tearing wind and her nipples were on high beam through her now damp shirt. She hastily grabbed at the copious material to cover herself, thanking the heavens for Bluey’s wife’s curves.
&
nbsp; She put out a hand for the pannier. ‘Lovely to meet you, Ryan, but I can take that now, thanks. Is there any way I can get to Polly’s Plains House tonight?’
Ryan went to throw a hand in the direction of the disappearing motorbike, then seemed to think better of it. ‘Well, I’m just about to close up the store. I could give you a lift?’
Jaime took another glance at him. The clean-cut, American college-boy look didn’t quite suit this backwater. But he didn’t seem like an axe murderer either, and where the hell else was she going to sleep tonight? Although, the way Ryan Morley was drinking her in she resolved not to take the overalls off until she was well and truly inside Polly’s Plains House. Wherever the hell that was.
Chapter 3
The note was on the old wooden kitchen table. She didn’t see it at first, intent as she was on getting rid of Ryan before he moved past the kitchen. He’d turned out to be a nice, harmless sort of man who was apparently waiting for a new backpacker to rock up and help him in the store over Christmas. Though judging by the few houses she’d seen in Burdekin’s Gap tonight, she couldn’t imagine him requiring another hand over the festive season. Perhaps he just wanted some Swedish backpacker to warm his frypan and his bed?
This place was so remote you’d have to be a special kind of woman to live here. The drive to the house in the dark had been positively spooky. Huge old oak trees, mirror images of each other, limbs spread like double-jointed fingers, lined a long gravel drive. Then there was the house itself, made of an ironstone brick, looming upwards into the shadowy night. The only bit of welcoming cheer was a swathe of white and purple agapanthus caught in the headlights of Ryan’s car.
They’d finally entered the place through the back door, after Jaime had mistakenly gone round to the front.
‘What are you doing?’ Ryan had asked as she mounted the imposing front steps, which swept up towards a magnificent Federation-style door emblazoned with stained-glass inserts.
‘I’m going to knock on the door.’
‘Why? You’re the only one here. Well, the only one at the big house, anyway.’
Of course she was. How stupid of her. Otherwise the owner wouldn’t have wanted her here in such a desperate hurry. The original house-sitter had reneged at the last minute and apparently the owner’s neurotic cat hated to be left alone. Jaime wasn’t too fond of cats. She was a dog person through and through.
‘I wonder how I get in then,’ she’d said.
Ryan had laughed, a contagious chuckle that immediately had her giggling too. She’d snatched another look at the ‘college boy’. He really was rather sweet.
‘C’mon, city slicker, you need to understand how we do things up here in the bush. You go in the back door, never the front. In fact, the front door’s probably been glued up with layers of paint for so long the flies have even forgotten about it.’
And with that, he’d grabbed her hand and towed her around the long verandah, over a rose garden, through a vegie patch in dire need of attention, past a long-forgotten well and up to a back door. He’d pushed the wire-screen door open with one hand and flourished a make-believe hat with the other. ‘After you, mademoiselle.’
Jaime grinned again now as she read the note on the table. Yep, Ryan sure was a sweetie. Not like the stockman who’d left this piece of paper for her. He obviously thought she was a bloke.
Jamie,
There’s bread in the freezer, long-life milk in the pantry, eggs, bacon and butter in the fridge. Need some help in the cattle yards in the morning. Meet you there 7 am. Just follow the house track around the back of the sheds and down onto the flat.
S. McEvoy
And that’s why she hated her name. Why couldn’t her parents have given her a pretty name, like Sarah, Kate or Emily? Instead she’d been saddled with a boy’s name with a wanky spelling. So not only did she have to deal with being called Mr Jamie Hanrahan, she had to spell the damn thing out as well. Add Josephina – a nod to some long-lost great-aunt – and you had JJ. And she hated JJ. It sounded so American.
She read the note again, actually taking in the words this time. Butter? Bacon? Yum! Imagine the looks on the faces of the girls at Wheetles & Brute. All that fat and cholesterol. They would faint at the sight of the frying pan.
What else did this S. McEvoy say? He wanted some help with the cattle? Well, that’d be a story to tell the girls when she got back home. She’d kind of hoped she might get up close and personal with a cow, even though no one had actually mentioned the house-sitting position involved helping out on the farm. The whole thing had been arranged in such a hurry. Thank goodness her friends had all banded together and bought her just the sort of footwear she needed for this eventuality: big chunky hiking boots from Colorado to suit all occasions. Then she remembered that said footwear was still in her faux leopard-skin suitcase behind the bar of the Lake Grace Hotel. And that suitcase was probably having a party with the Kelly boys by now.
She walked out onto the glassed-in verandah that circumnavigated the big old mansion she was to call home for the next four weeks. She cast her eyes around until she spotted a boot rack over near what appeared to be a second back door. She took in the array of footwear hanging upside down on hooks. The only ones that looked close to her size were long red gumboots with artistically drawn black ladybeetles crawling over them. They even had a black bow to decorate the top. Perfect. All was not lost.
She found a bedroom to sleep in, a bathroom, and set her phone to wake her at six-fifteen. That’d give her time to have a shower, do something with her hair and get out the door ready for her seven o’clock appointment. This cattle yards thing sounded fun.
‘What are you doing here?’ The man sounded incensed. ‘I left you with Ryan. Where’s Jamie?’
Jaime would have laughed if she hadn’t been so shocked to see Marble Man clad in a big brown bushman’s coat, standing in the cattle yards the next morning. She even glanced around to make sure she was in the right spot. Yes, she’d followed the house track around the back of the sheds and down onto the flat, just like the note said. No, she couldn’t see any other sets of yards. In fact she couldn’t really see anything, thanks to the fog that covered the lower paddocks in its whitewash.
‘It’s lovely to see you again too. Why didn’t you tell me you worked at Polly’s Plains?’
Marble Man ignored her question and responded with one of his own. ‘Have you come to give me a message from Jamie?’
She propped one hand on her hip and posed theatrically. ‘I’m Jaime, you idiot!’
Marble Man blanched. ‘Oh, you’re kidding me,’ he said as he lifted his head towards the sky. ‘Plea-se, Valerie, tell me you haven’t done this to me.’
Valerie? Who was …? Oh yes, now she remembered. Valerie Lucardy was the woman who owned Polly’s Plains.
‘It’s not going to help you talking to her up there,’ Jaime said. ‘From what the manicurist said, she’s cruising the Greek Islands on some luxury yacht.’
‘The manicurist?’ Marble Man looked like he couldn’t believe his ears. ‘I ask her for a handy type and she sends me a fucking beautician? Well, that explains the hysterics over the hair dryer.’
‘I did not have hysterics over my hair dryer.’
The man gave a ‘yeah right’ grunt.
Okay. Maybe she might have sounded a tad stressed and stomped her feet a bit, but that hardly counted as hysterics. Her ghd hair straightener? Well, that was a different matter entirely. She’d made that fit in.
‘For your information I am not a beautician. I have a double degree in marketing and public relations.’
‘Oh great, that makes it all better. Instead of someone who can help me out around the property, I get a fancy saleswoman with French nails wearing gumboots decorated with beetles. Terrific.’
What was wrong with her gumboots? If Valerie wore them surely she could too? She pulled at the ponytail she’d artfully arranged to the side of her head and contemplated the bloke in front of her
. He was looking beyond distressed. His heavy brow had sunk so low over his eyes she felt like pushing it up, telling him to kick back and have a cup of green tea. The man was going to have a heart attack at this rate.
‘I can help you, you know. I’m good at learning stuff. Just ask my da–’ She stopped. Gulped. Backtracked. ‘Just ask my boss.’
Wherever he was. Probably on a boat in the Greek Islands too with all that money he made from selling his share of Wheetles & Brute. She swallowed again. She would not think about her unemployed state and she would show this man. She could do this.
She climbed up the stockyard rails and over into the yard proper, stuck out a hand and tried to forget the fact that last night she’d been just about glued to his back in the most intimate way. ‘Let’s start over, shall we? I’m Jaime Hanrahan. I’m pleased to meet you. What do you want me to do?’
Marble Man just stared at her, like her hand was coated in the cat shit she’d found deposited in her Peter Alexander slipper this morning. The cat obviously hadn’t liked the dried food she’d fed it for dinner.
She dropped her palm. ‘Well, are we going to do some work here today or what?’
She noticed the muscle near the edge of his mouth move, the one that quirked slightly like it had a mind of its own. Despite its rebellion, the rest of his face remained impassive. Then he sighed; a big burst of air that seemed to concede defeat. But the glare in his flinty eyes reminded her it was only the first round.
‘Stirling McEvoy.’
His hand came down on hers like he intended to crush it. She tensed, but surprisingly his handshake was only firm. And warm. It sent a rush of electricity up her arm. Zing!
She dropped his hand like it was a burning hot hair straightener. It still tingled from the contact. Damn it. What the hell was that all about?
The confused look in Stirling’s gaze reflected her own. He abruptly turned and walked towards a pen of red and white cattle. ‘We’ll start with these Hereford steers. I’ll just bring them through.’
Rose River Page 2
