She swung in the drive and stopped at the gate. The chains wrapped around the post looked serious. ‘Why do you keep it locked?’
‘We get a swag of tourists up here over Christmas, camping up the bush and along the river. Let’s just say one or two or ten have been known to help themselves to a bit of Christmas cheer.’
‘Why does Valerie do it?’
Stirling threw her a quizzical look.
‘The trees. Why does she grow them? Does she sell them in the city?’
Stirling shook his head. ‘We give them away to charities and community groups like the local fire brigade. It’s our contribution to the community, and a gift to people who wouldn’t be able to afford a tree otherwise.’
Jaime couldn’t help wondering if Valerie was some sort of Mother Teresa in disguise. And Stirling seemed to know so much about what she thought and did … She opened her mouth to ask a few more questions about the mistress of Polly’s Plains, but Stirling was already out of the ute and heading to the gate.
He waved her through, then jumped up on the back of the vehicle. Buster whined so much at being left behind, Jaime stopped the car and let him out to join his master, laughing at the comical look on the dog’s face as he nearly jumped clean over the small tray back. Stirling caught him just in time.
They spent a couple of hours working together. Stirling felled the trees and Jaime came along behind and loaded them onto the ute and then the trailer. The sun wasn’t too bad as they had the shade of the trees, but Jaime was relieved she’d left on her borrowed straw hat. At least it stopped the sun from hitting her head and giving her sunstroke.
When the trees were at the point of toppling off both trailer and ute tray, Stirling shut down the saw and stretched his back. Jaime could almost feel every kink the man was ironing out. He’d been going non-stop for ages. She, on the other hand, had rested quite a few times, but had kept up with him, which she was proud of. She felt like saying, ‘There, Marble Man, I can be of use sometimes.’
Feeling buoyed by the achievement, she grabbed a couple of ropes out of the ute and went to tie one over the trailer-load of trees. She prayed her fingers would remember the way her father had taught her a truckie’s hitch, and breathed a sigh of relief when they did.
Stirling, meanwhile, tied down the trees on the ute tray. ‘All set, Princess.’ His mouth quirked a little as he took in her self-satisfied smile. ‘Congratulations. Who taught you to tie knots?’
‘My dad.’ The words came flying out of her mouth before she’d even thought about it. Damn.
‘Is he a truckie or something?’
‘Nope. Not anymore.’ Jaime walked towards the ute and jumped in the driver’s seat. Started the motor and slammed the vehicle into gear.
Stirling appeared at the passenger window. ‘Is he in the same category as Christmas? A no-go zone?’
Staring straight out through the front windscreen, Jaime felt tears prick her eyes. ‘Something like that. You going to relock this gate?’
She could feel his stare against the side of her face but she didn’t care. He’d had all the information he was getting for today. Her version of a D&M was officially over.
They were flying down the road and within sight of the Polly’s Plains front gate when Stirling gave an almighty shout. ‘Stop! Pull over!’
Jaime slammed on the brakes. ‘What’s wrong?’ she said, glancing in the rear-vision mirror for the first time since leaving the paddock. She’d been too immersed in her own thoughts. Her eyes didn’t compute the situation at first.
Buster on the back still? Check.
A ute full of trees still? Check.
A trailer full of trees still? Che –
There wasn’t one single Christmas tree left in the trailer. It was like Santa Claus had dived down with his sleigh and carted the whole lot off.
Stirling had bailed out of the ute and was standing beside the road holding the end of a trailing rope. The culprit. Obviously. Jaime groaned. So much for her fingers remembering the truckie’s hitch. Damn. Damn. Damn.
She got out and joined him beside the trailer. ‘I guess I wasn’t so smart after all,’ she said.
Stirling gave her a glance and just shrugged. ‘Easy enough to do. You’ll have to turn the ute around and we’ll go back and pick them up.’
Turn the ute around? The road was barely wide enough for a car, with a cliff face on one side and a steep drop on the other. She’d have to reverse the trailer. Damn.
‘I’ll walk back and get the trees off the middle of the road, otherwise if a car comes round that blind corner they’ll plough straight into them.’
He took off, loping quickly towards the scattered green pine trees. Just great, Jaime thought, although at least with his back to her, he mightn’t witness her final fall. She ran back to the ute, jumped in and looked to the sky. Please, Dad, help me through this.
What had he instructed her that day? ‘Chase the trailer, Princess, and you’ll be fine.’
Putting the ute into gear, she slowly drove it as far to the right as she could. Now for the moment of truth. She pegged reverse, then, letting off the clutch, she chased the trailer with the ute back across the road, swinging left and right to try to get the most out of the turn. She drove forward again. Yes! She felt like cheering! She was going to make it round.
The ute bumped up hard against the cliff. Maybe not. Jaime chased the trailer with the ute again and was finally facing towards Stirling. She took a few deep breaths of relief and self-congratulation. See, Dad, we did it! Then, making sure to take things a bit more slowly this time, she set off to collect Stirling and the renegade Christmas trees.
The ute’s digital clock was displaying two and a couple of zeros by the time they arrived back at Polly’s Plains.
‘I need to get these trees down to Ryan,’ Stirling said as they pulled up at his front gate. ‘I’ll skip lunch and head there now.’
‘No, I’ll do it,’ said Jaime. ‘It’s the least I can do for making you so late.’
Stirling seemed to wrestle with himself for a few moments before finally saying, ‘Okay, if that’s alright with you? I have to finish putting up the lights, go check some troughs, and fix the electric fence into the bunny paddock.’ At Jaime’s confused look, he added, ‘That’s what Valerie and I call the biggest eroded gully. A bit of a slap in the face, but it reminds us why we’re putting in the hard yards to revegetate.’
Aha. Back to the bunnies and their nightly feasts chewing succulent tree shoots. Jaime still felt dreadful she’d misjudged the man. The least she could do was deliver the trees for him.
‘There’ll be a Weekly Times at the shop for me too. Can you pick it up? I forgot to get it yesterday.’
‘Sure. Be glad to.’
Stirling glanced at her, a suspicious expression crossing his features. ‘Why so amiable, Princess?’
‘No reason.’
‘Mmm …’
Sheesh! He even disbelieved her when she was trying to be nice!
Chapter 8
Ryan’s shop was humming. She’d never seen so many four-wheel-drives in one place, except at a city car yard. Although most of these vehicles looked nothing like the Toorak tractors she was used to. These trucks bristled with bullbars, aerials and chunky tyres. They looked mean rather than soft and cushy, meant for the real business of four-wheel-driving rather than just cruising to the Mornington Peninsula for a weekend in the ‘country’.
She managed to catch Ryan on his second trip from petrol bowser to till. ‘What’s going on?’
The store owner paused in his mad dash and flung her a wide grin. ‘Welcome to the madhouse otherwise known as Christmas at Burdekin’s Gap. But don’t worry, it only lasts a couple of weeks or so. Ta ta! Got to run and make dollars while the sun shines.’
She leant against a petrol bowser and watched as vehicle after vehicle came up the drive. All these people must have finished work early and headed straight for the mountains.
‘Hey
there,’ called a young buck in a Nissan Patrol. ‘You wanna shine my baby?’
Jaime laughed. Time she got out of here.
She grabbed at Ryan’s workshirt as he buzzed past again. ‘I’ve got your trees from Stirling. Where do you want them?’
Ryan waved a hand towards the back of the store. ‘Out there somewhere. Hey, listen, JJ.’ He caught her look. ‘I mean Jaime. You don’t feel like giving us a hand here, do you? Just for this arvie? I’ll pay you.’
Jaime glanced at the Nissan Patrol driver with a frown. He was giving her legs the once-over. Noticing her look, he gave her a wink.
‘Okay, but here’s the deal,’ she told Ryan. ‘I want to work inside, behind the counter. And if any man gives me a hard time, I’m out of here.’
Ryan snatched up a pair of overalls. ‘Put these on then. They might hide that body of yours.’
Jaime didn’t know whether to feel complimented or insulted. ‘The fellas won’t be able to keep their hands to themselves otherwise,’ added Ryan before he took off to fill another petrol tank.
Okay, so it was a compliment. Shucks.
She glanced down at the overalls in her hands. They looked mighty big. It took a moment for it to dawn on her that they were the Pro Hart lovelies Bluey from the pub had lent her. Oh man, not again! But she had to admit that hearts and ‘BLUEY LOVES JEAN’ were preferable to ogling eyes and pinches on the bum.
She hauled the overalls on over her cut-offs, pausing to yank down the shorts as they curled into her crotch, probably in terror. It was only one afternoon. And it would be good to help Ryan out seeing he’d been so nice to her since she’d arrived in Burdekin’s Gap. She’d just make sure she didn’t turn around. The hearts on the overalls’ butt were something else.
Jaime was run off her feet trying to keep up with the fuel accounts, the last-shop-before-we-hit-the-bush grocery stock-ups, the fishing gear, and families just wanting a souvenir from the ‘iconic mountain town’ of Burdekin’s Gap. The biggest seller was a sticker proclaiming ‘The Gap – the Last Frontier’. She couldn’t believe the number of city slickers hitting this place. It was a nightmare.
Ryan called to her at one stage from the doorway. ‘You doing okay back there, JJ?’
She was so busy filling lolly bags for a bunch of ten year olds she didn’t even hear him, until someone said, ‘Hey, are you JJ? Guess that stands for Jean something-or-other, right? The dude with the blond hairdo wants ya.’
Jaime glanced up to see Ryan was now right beside her. ‘Anyone ever tell you how cute you look when you concentrate?’
‘Shhhh, I need to count.’
Ryan laughed, rang up the till and sauntered back outside where the rush of four-wheel-drives appeared to be slowing.
‘He your husband, miss?’ asked one of the kids.
Jaime laughed. ‘No, I haven’t got a husband.’
‘Why ya got BLUEY LOVES JEAN on ya overalls then?’
‘How did you know that was there?’ She’d been so careful to keep facing frontwards. Come to think of it, Jean was what that other bloke called her …
Three kids pointed as one behind her, and Jaime peered over her shoulder to see the back of her overalls reflected in all their glory in a long mirror placed strategically at an angle above her head. It had been put there, she guessed, so Ryan could see if anyone was shoplifting while he had his back turned. Bugger. No wonder people were grinning so widely when they came in to pay. It wasn’t because they were on holidays. It because her rear end was shouting her supposed love life to the whole world, albeit in reverse.
She turned back to the kids, who were laughing at her red face. She shoved her hands into the lolly jars one more time and didn’t bother to count out the last serving of sweets, just stuffed them into the bags and said, ‘Here you lot – scram!’
She snatched another look over her shoulder. Oh boy. The hearts gave a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘arse end of the world’. She’d be glad when today was over.
‘Thanks, JJ … whoops, I mean Jaime,’ Ryan said. ‘You’re a lifesaver. I’ve unhitched the trailer and unloaded the trees out of the ute.’
He sounded so grateful she didn’t have the heart to chew him out over the JJ. Plus, by now she was sure he was just taking the mickey out of her. Well, two could play at that game.
‘No worries. Look, I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but in the city my time’s usually charged out at two hundred and fifty dollars per hour.’ She watched as his face blanched. ‘So that would make my wages seven hundred and fifty dollars.’
‘Jesus H Christ!’
Jaime couldn’t help but smirk. ‘Just as well I’m doing this as a love job.’
Ryan recovered his usual rosy complexion. ‘Shit, you had me worried there for a minute, Jaime.’
No JJ this time, she noticed. ‘Good. About time someone ruffled your feathers.’
‘Oh, you ruffle my feathers alright.’ He broke off, embarrassed, and stared at the floor. ‘But you’re not interested, are you?’
Jaime replaced her self-satisfied grin with a rueful smile. ‘No, Ryan. You’re a lovely man but –’
‘I know, I know. Lovely just doesn’t cut it, right?’
She looked at him sadly. ‘No. I’m sorry.’
Ryan frowned, then perked up. ‘Don’t be sorry. At least we can be friends now. This just gets all that boy-girl tension out of the way.’
Unlike her and Stirling, thought Jaime. But that was another story altogether.
‘I guess you’ve got your sights set on McEvoy?’ Ryan added.
Jaime started in surprise.
‘Tiffany – another girl from around here was the same.’ Jaime could see he was striving for nonchalance but not quite hitting it. ‘She thought Stirling was a bit of alright too, until she realised he wasn’t a party animal. The man prefers a quiet life. Not like me. I like a good time.’ He waggled his eyebrows in invitation.
At her bland expression, he sighed and shrugged. ‘It was worth a try. Drive your ute around the front and fill it up. It’s the least I can do after your help today.’
Jaime was about to protest, then realised she probably owed Valerie fuel for the use of the vehicle. It wasn’t as if she was really working for her hundred bucks a week plus board. ‘Sounds great. Thanks.’
She peeled off Bluey’s overalls and gave them back to Ryan. She noticed he was valiantly trying not to ogle her legs, God love him.
‘One of us had better get these back to Lake Grace,’ he said. ‘I think Jean might be missing them by now.’ He grinned and slapped her on the back as they both walked out the door.
‘You met Jean?’ he added as Jaime set off towards the ute.
‘Nope.’
‘Well, you will at the Christmas Tree.’
Christmas tree? She’d just got rid of the damn things. She wasn’t going back there again.
Jaime had the windows down and the still-warm evening air spilled into the ute’s cab. The smell of the bush on the wind was fresh and liberating. She dipped her hand out the window frame into the breeze, allowing her fingers to duck and dive into the slipstreams of air. She’d found a CD in the glove-box so the McClymonts were now blasting out the speakers with all the force of a low-flying jet.
She felt … what? It took a couple of minutes to put her finger on it, but she came up with a word that surprised her. Happy.
That was until the ute’s engine started to rattle. She wasn’t sure if she was hearing right at first, but then smoke started pouring out from the exhaust. She could barely see the rear of the tray it was so bad. The ute started doing little bunny hops, followed by big bunny hops. Just as she decided it was time to pull over, the ute gurgled and ground to a halt.
Hell. She’d only been here a week and now she’d killed the poor Suzuki. What had it ever done to hurt her?
She tried the ignition. The motor rattled something awful before dying. She tried again. Nothing. This wasn’t good. What was wrong? She was a fill-it, dr
ive-it and park-it kind of girl. She left all the technical stuff to the experts at the garage.
So, she had two choices. Either stay with the vehicle or walk home.
Doing a search of the cab, she realised she was missing one vital item if she wanted to walk around in the fast-approaching night. A torch. Plus, she was still just a little bit afraid of the dark. Okay, maybe more than just a little bit, but she was sure she would have tried to walk it if she’d had a torch.
She decided her best bet was to stay with the vehicle. Surely with all the four-wheel-drives thundering along this road today, someone would come along and give her a lift. She just hoped it wasn’t that young buck in his Nissan Patrol.
It wasn’t.
Stirling McEvoy came flying past on his V-Max about nine o’clock, going hell for leather towards Burdekin’s Gap. He almost put the bike into a non-recoverable slide when he saw her sitting in the ute.
His first words to her weren’t the most pleasant. ‘Where in the hell have you been?’
Not a good start to the rescue operation.
‘Burdekin’s Gap.’
‘I was worried out of my head when I didn’t see any lights on up at the big house. You been with Ryan?’
Well, that was a loaded question. ‘Yes and no.’
‘Yes, you were, or no, you weren’t?’
‘Yes, I’ve been helping Ryan in the shop. No, I haven’t been in his bed, if that’s what you’re asking. But what that has to do with you anyway I have no idea.’
Stirling sucked in a breath and stared intently up at the sky. He stayed that way for so long she looked up too, just to check she wasn’t missing anything. Nope. The Milky Way was right where it should be.
Finally he spoke. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right. It is none of my business.’
Even though he’d apologised for the first time since she’d known him, Jaime felt disgruntled. It was like deep down she wanted it to be his business.
He’d moved on to more immediate matters. ‘What’s wrong with the ute?’
Rose River Page 6
