Down the hallway the young man had begun a soft-whistled country ballad that floated up into the high ceiling. ‘I remember what you said about the Swiss workers leaving and I’ll ask him about routers and see if we can get it to the shearers’ quarters for casual labour when Soretta needs it.’
Billie mightn’t be much of a cook, but she could make things happen if all it took was a money and organising. It felt good to be part of a group enterprise.
She grinned. ‘Might give that nice young man a chance to say hi to our landlady while he’s here.’
The next vehicle to arrive was Rex’s. The dogs barked, Daphne glanced nervously at the mirror placed strategically beside the back door, and Billie nodded to herself. Thought so. By the time the rattling trailer was dragged up beside the verandah steps the two women had moved outside to watch him pull up.
Except, unexpectedly, Morgan uncoiled from the car at the other side and Billie wished she’d taken a bit of time checking herself in that damn mirror. Nobody said he was coming.
He looked Billie’s way and lifted his akubra. Another man who looked good in a hat. Apparently she was starting to develop a fetish for cowboys.
‘Didn’t know you were coming, Morgan.’ Daphne sounded pleased and Billie suspected she might be a bit pleased herself, though it was hard to tell under the jumbling pros and cons of more-exposure-to-Morgan thoughts in her brain.
She considered the concept and decided to hell with it, she was very pleased. The more men, the better for shifting stuff. It was just the shock of seeing people she associated with work in her downtime. Nothing else.
‘Said I’d give Rex a hand,’ Morgan drawled.
Billie smiled, satisfied she’d given nothing away, and decided she’d stand somewhere with a good view. Nothing wrong with enjoying the eye candy working out.
‘It also meant I could check just how long it was going to take you to get to work when I need you.’ She’d initially looked guiltily away at her naughty thoughts, but this comment had her attention.
‘Twelve minutes, I timed it.’ She raised her brows. Thankfully, her voice sounded surprisingly cool and composed and she decided maybe she shouldn’t watch.
Nah. Too good an opportunity. She leant back against the house wall and ogled for the hell of it.
Rex opened the rear of the trailer and jumped up into it, and Daphne’s long lounge began feeding out into Morgan’s hands.
Billie watched and the day just got better. She could feel the smile curve her lips as Morgan’s biceps bulged and his back straightened when he took most of the weight until Rex jumped down. Then Rex backed his end, nice end, Rex, she thought, and flicked an amused smile at Daphne’s rapt gaze. The men heaved it towards the verandah steps and inched up. That lounge looked very heavy.
She smiled across at Daphne, who still had that dreamy look on her face. Seriously, a crooked finger towards Rex would have worked a treat, but she had the feeling Daphne would take a while to get to that point. No doubt that was where the land lay, though. Maybe she and Daphne could have a good giggle about this later, and the thought of having a friend she could share this silly stuff with was a new shiny notion she hugged to herself.
Another magical twenty minutes and all was done. It was very short work as the two well-muscled men easily set Daphne’s lounge and chairs and solid coffee table in her sitting room, then rearranged the remaining furniture good-naturedly for the third time. It was a novel experience to see how extra muscles could make house shuffling a breeze. Then it was over and suddenly the kitchen was a whole lot smaller as everyone sat down.
Morgan sat next to Billie, his big frame encroaching on her space. His muscled leg grazed hers and gave off heat from his exertion, and far from repelling her, she actually enjoyed the subtle briny scent as he reached for a plate of sandwiches.
Daphne, of course, had produced a feast, including scones and cream, and presided over the big pot of tea with a beatific expression on her face. Someone was having fun.
Billie wished Soretta was here because it felt very strange to host a tea party in someone else’s house, and it might have distracted her from the man beside her to see Soretta in action when there was company.
Daphne had sent a plate of scones with that nice young internet man over to the shearing sheds to share. He said he’d worked here once before and knew where they were located, and would check out the best way of setting up wi-fi over there.
Morgan’s leg shifted against hers again and Billie almost rubbed back, but instead she inched her foot away slightly. In desperation to stay centred, she clutched at the idea that this was her home for a while at least, these were her people, and how she felt more settled since moving here than she had for a long time. The concept gelled into conviction. She concentrated on the reality of waking up here tomorrow, and the next day and the next, out on the land, distanced, and not just by time, from the past.
The concept of freedom from worry about what Mia was getting up to brought a joy to her heart and a smile to her face that she hadn’t expected.
Suddenly everything was easy. She turned to Morgan. Unconsciously, she shared the new lightness she could feel expanding inside her. ‘Thanks so much for helping us settle in and for moving the furniture.’
His eyes widened as she blasted him with her new found happiness and he looked startled for a moment. This was the most expressive she’d seen him since meeting him. ‘And thank you,’ he said gravely.
She looked around the table and then back at him, then cocked an eyebrow, confused now. ‘What for?’
‘The smile.’
‘That wasn’t yours,’ she said without thinking, then blushed. Cripes. She sounded like an ungrateful wretch. ‘I mean,’ she drew a breath, ‘you’re welcome.’ And reached across for a scone she didn’t want to give her hands something to do.
Soretta drove back for lunch to see how the tenants were going and saw the car and trailer turning out of her gate and onto the road. Apparently she’d just missed the furniture arriving. It had been kind of Daphne to send scones across with Clem, and to sort the internet over there, too, which would help enormously with keeping transient staff.
The sun glinted off the new satellite dish on the roof of the homestead and a small portion of the weight around her shoulders lifted. Another bonus. Klaus was pleased at the idea because he had a girlfriend in Germany and she wasn’t happy with his email silence. And the new satellite dish would make it easier to get the ear-tagging and mustering done like they used to, when they could entice staff for heavy-workload days.
She leapt lightly up the steps onto the verandah and when she walked into the house the aroma of cooked meat moistened her tastebuds and suddenly, ridiculously, she felt like crying. It was like her grandmother was here again. Which was stupid because neither of the smiling women were her gran, but still she felt a warmth she hadn’t sensed for two years and she had to blink several times and hope nobody would notice.
She needed to remember that these women, one of whom she barely knew and the other she’d only known for a short time, weren’t here forever, but it was nice to have feminine company again. Almost as if the homestead felt welcoming instead of a guilty burden she’d shouldered as she’d tried to shield her grandfather from their loss. And maybe now it would be less responsibility to maintain the house the way her gran had liked. That load would lighten and it would all happen while she’d be doing what she needed and loved to do: work out on the land.
SEVEN
Three hours later and 10 kilometres away from Blue Hills Station, Mia’s mood was not improving as she sat on the school bus, surrounded by a posse of noisy children she didn’t know. She glared out the window at the passing countryside and scratched at the healing scab on her arm from the motorbike escapade.
The landscape looked like the stinking moon. Stunted trees, outcrops of rocks, and dry paddocks with straggly sheep. Not one house. Until they rounded a bend and the bus slowed. Of course the bus driver
knew where she was going without her telling him. She hadn’t made a sign. Everyone knew everything around here. Stupid place. The bus jerked to a stop as she grabbed her bag and stood up.
‘Blue Hills Station,’ the driver said. ‘Pick up at seven thirty-five a.m. tomorrow.’ He grinned evilly at her shocked face. ‘We don’t wait for slackers.’
She wasn’t getting back in the stinking bus. Her mother could take her in the mornings and she could come home with Daphne.
She started the walk up the drive, which was just as long as the walk she’d had back from school in the old house. Just when she’d been getting used to living in that dump of a town. And having fun in the afternoons!
She swallowed. Except for the day she’d stacked Trent’s bike. Trent had been so good about that. She really liked him and now she’d never see him except with three hundred other people around at school. She was going to die of boredom out here.
As she walked up the steep dusty track towards the house she heard what sounded like a truck slow down on the road and turn into the drive. She kept walking with her head lowered, but the vehicle was noisily coming up the driveway behind her.
A rattly four-wheel drive utility pulled up and a cloud of dust enveloped her, swirling round her feet then rising until she was suffocating. This day just kept getting better.
She coughed and turned her head, and saw a blue-eyed jillaroo type leaning across to open the door. ‘You must be Mia. I’m Soretta. Jump in.’
Soretta. The landlady. Not a lot she could do about the choice of getting in, then. So Mia opened the square door wider and climbed up into the dusty cabin of the vehicle.
‘Hi,’ she mumbled, clutching her school satchel and digging her fingers into the canvas material.
Soretta frowned. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
Embarrassed at being caught out feeling sorry for herself, her cheeks heated. ‘Nothing.’
She glanced swiftly at the woman with her red hair pulled back from her sun-browned face and met the no-nonsense eyes. The jillaroo shrugged and revved the engine to start up the hill again, then changed gears. ‘You’ll get used to the bus.’
Well, she wasn’t going to get used to it. ‘I doubt it.’
Soretta shrugged again and Mia got the impression that she didn’t care either way. Mia bunched the satchel under her fingers harder. She was going to hate this place. The engine roared as they climbed the hill to the house.
Soretta must have thought the same. ‘Do you even like animals?’
‘I love animals.’ That was true enough. ‘Just never had a chance to have any.’
‘Lucky, then. I’ll show you how to feed the orphan lambs I’ve been keeping in the laundry shed. I usually get home later than this and they’re starving by the time I arrive. It’s not really working and I was going to have to put them back with the mob earlier than I wanted. It would help if you could start feeding them when you get off the bus in the afternoons.’
‘I don’t know how.’
Soretta looked at her. ‘It’s not rocket science. You’ll only need to watch once.’
Mia wasn’t sure if she should be offended or pleased that Soretta had already given her a job. But the idea of a lamb she could talk to and maybe even name was almost cool.
Soretta pulled up outside the steps of the house but didn’t turn off the engine. ‘Jump out. I’ll put the ute away in the shed.’
‘Oh. Okay. Thanks for the lift.’ Mia climbed down and shut the door.
Soretta didn’t answer, she just drove away.
Strange person, Mia thought a little wildly, and looked up at the sound of the door opening. Her mother came out of the screen door onto the big shaded verandah looking too stinking happy.
Billie spread her arms. ‘Welcome home, Mia. Isn’t it fabulous?’
Mia couldn’t help herself. The words tumbled out with all the confusion of being seriously out of her comfort zone. ‘No! I hate it. I hate the bus. I want to live in town.’
Her mother looked like she was going to snap back at her but didn’t. Just closed her eyes and Mia bet she was counting to ten. Well, all the counting to ten in the world wasn’t going to make her like this place. No siree.
She heard her mother sigh. She hated it when her mother did that. ‘Come in when you can be civil and say hello to Daphne.’
Damn. She’d forgotten Daphne would be here, too. Daphne didn’t deserve her bad temper. Neither did her mother, a tiny voice whispered, and she could feel the heat in her cheeks. She hadn’t meant to let it all explode out of her like that, but she’d felt on the back foot all day knowing she had to get on a strange bus and then meeting Soretta hadn’t helped, as she’d made her feel like a dumbo. Now she felt small and she hated that, too. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, and followed her mother inside.
Her mother stopped suddenly and Mia ran into the back of her.
It was something she hadn’t done for years, but when she’d been younger it seemed to happen all the time and they’d both end up laughing at her clumsiness. For it to occur now so unexpectedly, after feeling blue for most of the day, made Mia giggle like the little girl she used to be.
Billie turned and leant forward to hug her daughter. ‘Thank goodness for that. Give it a go,’ she said quietly, ‘I think this is going to work out fine.’
Ten minutes later Mia followed Soretta down the steps and across the yard to a leaning outbuilding that looked like it had been there for a hundred years. It probably had, though the house was pretty cool.
They passed a heavily pregnant brown kelpie and her mate, a black-and-tan fellow with pointy ears and a bouncing step. Mia loved dogs, had always wanted one, and she bent down to pat them both.
She looked up at Soretta, who was watching her. ‘What are the dogs’ names?’
‘George and Gigi.’
Mia repeated the names in her mind so she would remember. Stood up again and marvelled at the swinging teats of the mother dog. ‘When are the pups due?’
‘Soon. I’m making her a safe place.’
When Soretta opened the shed door, Mia saw a big old child’s playpen in the corner of the floor sitting on a tarpaulin and two eager creamy lambs butted against the bars.
Soretta said, ‘I put them inside when I come home and we let them back into the lamb yard in the morning. There’s a pack of wild dogs getting pretty cheeky at the moment.’
Mia shuddered and her attention was again fixed on the fluffy animals. They were like toys. She could feel her mouth curve as she fought to remain disinterested. She really hadn’t wanted to come here. But it was too much for her.
‘So what do you feed them?’ Mia lounged against the door and tried not to laugh out loud as they gambolled and jumped with the excitement of approaching milk.
Soretta raised her eyebrows. Didn’t say anything except, ‘Pseudo Shepherd, two hundred and fifty mils twice a day.’
She watched Soretta walk towards a cracked slate benchtop beside a steel sink with those old brass laundry taps you saw in books. Then she watched her pick up a bottle she’d had soaking and tip the water out of it. ‘How many scoops in the bottle?’
‘Are you interested in taking on the job?’ Soretta said, her tone noncommittal.
Yes. But she didn’t want to fall on her neck. ‘I suppose so.’
Apparently that didn’t wash. ‘If you don’t want to, that’s fine. But there’s no suppose about it, princess. They die if you forget.’
Mia could feel her cheeks warm. The boss lady was no pushover like her mother, but very strangely that was okay. She stood up away from the door and dropped her fake disinterest. ‘Yes, please. How many scoops?’
Soretta pointed to the bag. ‘Read it. I can tell you but if I’m not here and you forget how are you going to find out? You’ll need to do it in the morning and at night. As they eat more solid food we wean them down to one feed before we let them out.’
When Mia learned the correct number of scoops, Soretta showed her how to make
up the milk powder and put a teat on the end of each bottle. When they pushed the teats through the bars of the playpen, Mia laughed out loud at the eager way the lambs butted against the bottles. She glanced at Soretta shyly. ‘Thanks for showing me.’
‘One less job. Though we’ve got a few weeks of lambing to go so you’ll probably end up with more before the season’s over. My grandad reckons it’s a waste of money when others are dying, but I need the comfort of them sometimes.’
Mia nodded. ‘I can see how they’d make you smile.’ Her face felt stretched in a grin so wide she thought it would split as tiny woolly heads bumped their wet noses against her knees through the playpen columns. And there would be puppies to come, too. Brand new puppies. She couldn’t wait.
‘In the morning drag the tarp out and hang it over the fence and bring it back in before you bring the lambs back for the night.’ She gave Mia a penetrating stare. ‘You right with that?’
‘Sure.’ She’d have to be. Soretta could be a scary woman. It was only later that she realised that while she was feeding the lambs she’d somehow forgotten about her own bad mood.
Three days later at the start of the new week, Billie paused beside Morgan’s desk and waited until he looked up. ‘Thanks for coming out on Friday, and helping with the furniture.’
She just might have caught the hint of a smile there in his face. ‘You’re welcome. It looks like an interesting set-up.’
Billie thought about the occasional territorial awkwardness that seemed to have all but disappeared by Sunday night. ‘We had a great weekend.’ She laughed. ‘For a couple of single ladies looking for a home with a difference it’s perfect. And Mia loves the animals.’
He raised his brows. ‘Hope Lachlan finds it convivial when he comes home from the hospital. I’m afraid it’s not my idea of fun living with that many women.’
Now why would he say that? And the fact that she was spending a little time worrying about the same thing made him even more annoying. Grr. ‘I was thinking you seemed like a bit of a misogynist.’
The Homestead Girls Page 9
