There'd been talk of ending the cruise early, so the cruise company could disinfect the ship. That would teach them to employ arseholes like Pierre. It wasn't until Penny disembarked amid a pack of pale-faced passengers that she realised she had a problem. The cruise company had paid for all of them to be put up in the hotels in town, which left precious little accommodation for her. The crew remained aboard, forced to clean the ship from top to bottom. Penny didn't envy them.
She'd tried reasoning with Pierre, when it became apparent that she truly had been sick, but he held stubbornly to his decision. She no longer worked for him, and the only reference she'd get from him would be a bad one.
So she shouldered her bag and boarded one of the courtesy buses provided to transport the passengers into town. She wasn't sure what to do next, but she had enough money to buy a beer, and God knew she needed a drink in this heat.
There was standing room only in the Roey – not something she'd often seen in the town's iconic pub. Nevertheless, she sidled through the crowd to reach the bar, where she waited for ages before the bartender so much as acknowledged her.
"What'll it be?" the woman asked.
Penny waved her hand. "Whatever pint's cheapest." Today she didn't care what sort of beer she got, as long as it was ice cold. Sure enough, it was.
She counted out the last coins in her purse to pay for it, feeling her face grow red with shame.
"I take it you're not one of the cruise passengers?" the bartender asked.
Penny shook her head.
"Backpacker? Looking for work?"
Penny set her beer down on the bar. What did she have to lose? It's not like she had a job any more. "Yeah."
"We could do with an extra waitress today. Have you ever waited tables before? Served in a bar?"
Penny sighed. "Yeah, and worked in the kitchen, too. I'm an apprentice chef, but I thought I'd take a break for a bit."
The bartender extended a hand across the bar. "Freena. I'll pay you fifteen bucks an hour for as long as I need you today, and at the end, we'll talk about tomorrow, maybe."
Fifteen was better than nothing. "Sure. I'm Penny."
Freena nodded. "Grab an apron in the kitchen. Tell Dirk you're the new waitress. He'll give you a rundown on where to put your orders and where to collect them." She eyed Penny's bag. "You can put your things in the office in the back."
Penny emptied her beer and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Take that, Pierre, she thought. Not off the ship for an hour and already she had a new job.
SIX
"There. Done." Xan switched off her computer, stood and stretched. She'd caught glimpses of the film crew and the two bachelors through her window over the course of the afternoon, but she'd been good and stayed at her desk, doing her job. Now, it was knock-off time. It would be the most natural thing in the world to stroll past while they were filming, and casually ask about their progress.
She picked up her phone and dialled the extension for IT. Before Seb could finish his greeting, she cut him off. "Where are they?"
"Clustered around North Beach, near the treeline," he replied promptly.
Xan smothered a laugh. Trust the nosy IT boys to know their every movement. The show's bubbly hostess seemed to have a talent for making men melt. Except for Jay, oddly. There must be a history there, she decided. "Thanks," she said to Seb, then ended the call.
She enjoyed the short walk to the beach, shucking off her shoes so she could feel the sand between her toes. She wasn't surprised to find the farmers and their film crew precisely where Seb had said, but she was surprised to see Jay there. Paige divided her attention between the farmers and Jay, though Jay didn't seem to notice her admiring glances. The farmers appeared too awed by Jay to do more than stammer out responses to Paige's questions, which made the woman snap in irritation.
Filming was not going well, Xan decided.
"I'm looking for a girl who can cook and clean and isn't afraid of cows. She doesn't have to be a beauty queen, but she should be fit, you know, like me." The farmer flexed his biceps.
The other farmer nodded thoughtfully, looking like he approved.
Xan choked back laughter.
Paige looked like she was going to explode.
"Nah, mate, no girl will go for that. You gotta romance it up a bit," Jay said.
They all stared.
"Say how pretty your farm is, or how awesome it is to have...however many head of cattle you have. But how it gets lonely, so you work out a lot and get pretty active, so you'd love to have someone to share it with. Love and laughter over a delicious meal at the end of a hard day's work. Help picking the names of this year's new calves. You're looking for a partner, a soulmate, to share stuff with. Some mushy shit like that." Jay shrugged.
More nods of approval, from both blokes this time.
"How would you do it, then?" ventured the one who hadn't spoken yet. "If you wanted a wife."
Xan expected Jay to laugh off the suggestion, but he surprised her, again. Maybe it was how intently Paige stared at him as she signalled for the cameraman to start filming.
"Mr Felix, what are you looking for in a wife?" Paige asked.
"I've met a lot of ladies, lovely ladies, in my career. All of them beautiful and talented in their own way. But you know what? I never met the One."
"What's so special about the One?" Paige prompted.
"The One...she'd capture my heart. Every touch or smile would strike me like a bolt of lightning. We'd share everything and we'd be equal in everything. For every time I save her, she'll save me right back. She'd be the melody to my bass line. She'll inspire love songs so beautiful I could seduce the whole world, but there's only one woman in the world I want. The one woman who will help me write my first true love song – one to last a lifetime."
Even Xan found herself sighing at Jay's words. The farmers still looked awed, but now they also looked...inspired.
One of them traded places with Jay. He cleared his throat. "When I stand on the highest point on my farm, all the land I can see is mine, because I have one of the biggest cattle stations in the country. You'd think with all that, I'd be satisfied, but it's a lonely life. No one to share it with when the sun sinks into the desert, or when the dawn lights up the eastern ranges just right..."
Now it was Jay's turn to nod, but Paige's smile said she approved, too.
The rest of the filming went quite quickly after that, with Paige declaring a wrap just over an hour later. The blokes seemed to have bonded over the experience, and were now offering to shout each other and Jay beers in the pub afterwards.
After hearing spiels about how miserably lonely it was in the Kimberley for a single bloke, Xan decided she'd like to alleviate a little loneliness of her own, and offered to join Paige for a drink in the Jungle, too. So they took a table in one corner while the blokes claimed one by the bar, and Xan sipped her way through a ginger beer as she and Paige made small talk about the show.
Paige couldn't say much, of course, but she was happy to explain some of the basics. The interviews they'd done today would be edited down to under five minutes, before they were uploaded to the network's website. Then they'd open the call for potential brides. In the past, they'd sometimes gotten thousands of applications, and the studio staff would narrow it down to the ladies who ticked all the boxes on the bachelors' sometimes extensive lists. One bloke had only liked redheads. One particularly short bloke had insisted anyone taller than his shoulder need not apply. One of them had owned an oyster farm, so the girls all had to like seafood and not be allergic.
Once they had a shortlist for each of the bachelors, they gave the lists to the men. Each bloke got his own list, and he had to narrow it down to twenty women he'd like to meet, though only eight would make it onto the show. Officially, that was because sometimes the girls couldn't get the time off work, or they had other commitments that meant they couldn't make the filming dates, or the farmstay.
"Farmstay?" Xan asked
.
The bachelors interviewed all eight girls and got to pick four favourites, Paige explained, who would be invited to stay on the bloke's farm for a couple of weeks. A film crew would go out to each farm with the girls, to record pretty much everything. Every kiss, every alone moment, which the crew sometimes had to arrange, planning dates for the couple either on the farm or at a nearby town. The bachelor would send two of the girls home within the first week, but the remaining two would stay for the duration, and meet up with some of his family and friends, before he had to make his final decision.
"And they're expected to get married? Just like that?" Xan said, trying to hide her incredulity.
Paige laughed. "It's encouraged, and the studio offers them a pretty sweet bonus if they propose on the show, and then invite the host and camera crew to the wedding, so we can broadcast it between seasons, but it doesn't happen very often. The weddings do get a lot of viewers, though, and you see it in the boost in the next season's numbers. We actually have a pretty high success rate – a lot of the couples stay together long after the show. Some of them do get married, and some even have kids."
Xan glanced at the two farmers. "Do you think they will...?
Paige donned her professional smile, the same sort Xan wore when she was being deliberately vague. "You never know for sure until you see them with the girls. It's all about chemistry."
Jay slapped his hands on their table, startling Xan. "It sure is, but I already told you, they won't. They have all the chemistry they need right at that table. Fresh beers, too. I figured I didn't want to feel like the third wheel over there, so I said my goodnights, and now I'll say the same to you ladies. It is time for me to watch...the Simpsons." He strode out of the pub.
"I'm sure that's some sort of euphemism for adult films," Xan said, watching him go.
"I doubt it," Paige replied. "If he wanted to watch Martian Buttsex 69, Jay would probably say so, just to see our expressions. And, like me, he is a big fan of the Simpsons." She rose and excused herself, pleading an early start the next day.
Xan headed home soon after, intrigued by Paige's easy explanation about TV matchmaking and trying not to wonder why there was more than one film about...what was it? Martian butt sex? Urgh. No, she would NOT search the internet to find out more about it. It'd be faster to ask the IT guys, anyway. And she wouldn't have to see pictures.
SEVEN
Pierre was right, Penny reflected glumly, untying her apron. She wouldn't get work as an apprentice chef again in a hurry. Oh, sure, she had a waitressing job, and she'd even found a place to live in a sharehouse in town without too much trouble, but she was as far from becoming a qualified chef as the day she jumped aboard that cruise ship. The universe hated her, that was why.
As she cleaned up the last of the tables, she picked up a copy of the day's West. On the cover was a woman in chef's whites, holding up some sort of trophy she'd won in a competition. Glancing around to make sure no one needed her, Penny took a moment to read the article.
Penny's surprise increased with each word she read. Far from being a trained chef, the woman was a mother and office worker in one of the regional towns down the coast. Yet the meals she'd cooked as part of some reality TV program had earned her the status of one of Australia's celebrity chefs.
The newspaper dropped from her hand. If she went on one of those programs, she wouldn't need to finish her apprenticeship. Her reputation would speak for itself, and Pierre could go screw himself. She'd be able to open her own restaurant, and never have to look to some overbearing man for direction again. She'd be in charge.
EIGHT
Paige staggered into Xan's office and slumped into her client chair without saying a word. Her stricken expression said plenty, though.
Xan set down her pen. The quotes for the new glass-bottomed boat for the lagoon could wait. "Who died?" she asked lightly.
Paige glared.
Xan felt a chill of dread that she'd have a corpse to deal with.
"I've lost two farmers," Paige bit out through gritted teeth.
Xan reached for her phone. "I'll call IT. They can find anyone on the island in less than a minute."
Paige laughed harshly. "Oh, I know where they are. In one of your hotel rooms, locked in behind a DO NOT DISTURB sign."
"I can override any door lock in the resort, if necessary," Xan offered.
"After all you said about guest privacy, and how important it is to the resort, you'd force open a guest's door?" Paige mocked.
Xan shook her head, wishing the other woman would stop talking in riddles. "Okay, none of this makes any sense. Please tell me what's happened, what course of action you'd like to take, and how my staff and I can help." She thought her voice did a pretty good job at hiding her irritation.
Paige gave a mirthless smile. "Well, it looks like after yesterday's filming, our two farmers got to drinking in your pub. Once the beer had been flowing freely for a few hours, they became the best of mates. Good enough mates to share a few secrets. Turns out they were hiding the same secret, and when one of them spilled the beans..."
"Congratulations!" Jay burst into Xan's office, beaming. "I bet you never expected your matchmaking to pay off so quickly. C'mon, that has to be a record for the show."
Xan rubbed her temples. If anything, Jay made even less sense than Paige.
"Where are they now?" Paige demanded.
Jay pulled up a chair for himself. "They saw me taking my morning swim in the lagoon, and decided they wanted one, too. I told them about my favourite hidden beach, and I bet they're getting all romantic right there now."
"With who?" Xan asked. "You haven't even asked their prospective brides to apply yet. You can't tell me both of those blokes have suddenly turned into Don Juans overnight and both seduced women they've just met? The only women in the pub last night were us!"
Jay just shook his head, while Paige's expression grew more thunderous.
"Ah, c'mon, Paige. Don't be so pissed off. I told you yesterday they were gay. You didn't believe me then, but you can't deny it now. They're out of the closet and thrilled to have found a kindred spirit. It'd be an awesome line to take with the show. Call it Farmer Bags A Partner instead and turn it into the first gay dating show in Australia. You could always throw in the occasional straight guy, too, just to mix things up a bit. I'm sure you'll have plenty of takers. I mean, yesterday, for a minute there, even I considered – "
"I called the studio this morning," Paige interrupted. "They said they won't champion gay marriage in Australia in the current climate. Their ratings would plummet. And if I can't find two replacement farmers who like women, they'll cancel the show entirely."
It was Xan's turn to drop into despair. "What? No! I've cancelled dozens of day trips to fit with your filming schedule. All the tourism operators in town are sponsoring this thing. You can't cancel the show!"
"We had trouble enough finding these two blokes. No one wants to go on a reality dating show any more. The drama we put the blokes through on camera, the pressure they're under to find love and make a decision in that short time...these are guys who struggle to ask a girl out on a date, they're so shy and awkward. With budget cuts, we can't afford another country-wide call for bachelors. My budget's effectively zero for the search."
"What if you were willing to negotiate a bit with the blokes? Dial down the drama a bit and let them see some of the raw footage before it goes to air, so they have a better idea of what the girls are like, and what your viewers will see?" Jay suggested.
"Not a hope in hell. The network executives will never buy it. No one has that kind of pull with them." Paige shook her head violently.
"Bet I could swing it," Jay said.
"You'd still need to find farmers – " Paige began.
"Nah, I was thinking me."
Xan and Paige stared at him.
Paige recovered first. "You want to pretend to be a farmer and make me find you a suitable wife? Even for you, that's crazy. We'd
be overwhelmed with applications. Half the female population – not just the ones under thirty – would apply. We'd probably get thousands of international applications, too. It'd take months just to narrow it down. And everyone knows you'll never settle down. You're the ultimate tomcat, which is why girls love you so much."
"So don't tell them who I am. Say I'm a mystery man, some sort of celebrity, but don't say who. Hide my identity from the girls until they arrive here for the meet and greet. Sure, you'll get fewer applicants, but I bet you still get quite a selection. And ones who aren't pulled in by my name, either, so maybe, if I'm really lucky, you might find me a bride."
Xan watched Jay, waiting for him to admit he was joking. He had to be. No one in their right mind would...
"Okay," Paige said. "But I don't think we could run the show with just one bachelor. Even running with two was going to be hard, because we normally have at least six. How on earth will we manage to record enough footage to fill a show about just you?"
Jay grinned. "Oh, but it's not just me. It's all about the girls, because most of your viewers are women. So have more girls. Double the number. I don't know. We got plenty of space here, and you'd originally planned to have two blokes with all their brides-to-be."
Paige tapped her chin. "But what about the farmstay? The girls are supposed to come and stay with you on your farm. We get really good ratings for the first farm episode. Viewers love watching city girls adjust to rural life."
Jay shrugged. "Does it have to be my farm?"
"Well, no, but it's not as realistic if it's not yours. I mean, the girls are supposed to be seeing if they can fit into your lifestyle, isolated out here, and this luxury resort isn't exactly slumming it."
The Rock Star Wants a Wife Page 2
