by Jessica Kate
“That’s no more your fault than apparently you leaving Wildfire was mine.”
Sam paused. She said what? He risked a glance back.
Kimberly struggled to her feet on semisolid ground. Mud dripped from her chin and elbows and ran in rivulets down her legs. He stood as well and grasped her elbow to steady her as they waded through the last section of mud. “What do you mean?”
Finally, dry land. Kimberly stopped walking and tipped her head back a little to look up at him. The brown mask dripping over half her face gave her an eerie quality. “I mean your dad made a choice, knowing the possibilities. That burden’s not yours.”
He blinked. If he’d known all he had to do to make Kim nicer was fly her to Australia and throw her in the mud, he’d have done it years ago. She was wrong, but it was still nice. And putting “Kimberly Foster” in the same sentence as “nice” . . . This shifted the status quo into new and awkward territory.
He cleared his throat. “If we stomp around, the snake will feel our vibrations and leave. It’ll be safe for us to get our boots.” Her face dropped. “For me to get our boots,” he amended.
Her answering smile looked different when she wore mud rather than makeup. Or was the difference in him?
Sam stomped his feet against the ground and clapped his hands, heading in the direction of their boots. Wrangling a brown snake was easier than wrangling the muddied woman stomping behind him.
Chapter 10
Sam had ditched her.
Kimberly pulled a UCLA hoodie over her bleach-stained Linkin Park concert T-shirt and stomped through the house yard toward the dairy as early sunlight washed the sky in shades of baby blue and yellow. Had she not been so irritated, she’d have stopped to enjoy her surroundings—the fresh air, the cacophony of foreign bird calls, the way the plants and color palette differed from the Smallville-esque farms back home. But she’d asked Sam yesterday to take her to the dairy with him and had expected a knock on her door at some heinous hour of the morning. Her watch read 5:30 a.m. And no Sam.
What did he think—that avoiding her when they were both on the same farm would actually work?
She passed by the wide track that led to the dairy yard, where the dog barked at cows entering the enclosure. A man she guessed was the employee they’d mentioned, Butch, drove a truck behind the final stragglers, a cigarette dangling from his lips. A pang of nostalgia wedged in her chest. It could just be the scent of his smoke wafting over her, or maybe his thin profile, but he kinda reminded her of an older version of Dad. Dad and Butch probably would’ve been around the same age—if Dad hadn’t died at twenty-nine.
She forced herself to continue. Wouldn’t do any good to weird out the guy by staring at him. And she still hadn’t found Sam.
She rewound the past eighteen hours in her head. After recovering their boots, Sam had been . . . pleasant. She’d watched him tow the four-wheeler out of the water and load it onto the truck with the tractor. Seeing him make the heavy machinery dance with his fingers on the controls—and his shirt plastered to his skin—certainly hadn’t been a trial. And after she’d had a shower and a nap, he and Jules had crammed her between them in the truck and taken her on a grand tour of the property. She’d spent more than two hours enthralled at every childhood story they told of family, adventure, and perseverance. Their lives had been everything she’d ever dreamed of as a kid, and more.
Then, after watching the sun set over the turkey’s nest, they’d returned to the house to make spaghetti Bolognese together and laugh at a comedy from Jules’s movie collection. Like they were real friends.
She should’ve known it wouldn’t last.
Kimberly stepped into the dairy’s brick-and-concrete vat room—which had been included in yesterday’s tour—and found her nemesis bent over a large pipe lying next to a vat. He looked up at her, a surprised expression on his face. “I was just about to come over and get you.”
She eyed him with suspicion as she tugged down the sleeves on her hoodie. The temperature had dropped a couple degrees in this room—everything in here was wet cement and metal. “Really?”
He leaned against the large vat beside him. “You think I’d be brave enough to ditch you?”
“It may’ve crossed my mind.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “I know not to antagonize a bulldog.”
She propped a hand on her hip. “Bulldogs are adorable and strong, so I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“As it was intended.” He grinned at her.
She blinked. Lighthearted banter? That was a nice change from their usual exchange of eye rolls and threats of bodily harm. Though to be fair, all threats tended to come from her side.
Sam attached the hose in his hands to the vat with a ridiculously large spanner, then straightened. “I thought you might still be jet-lagged. I let you sleep in while I got the cows.”
“Oh. Thanks.” She’d been up since 3:00 a.m. anyway, both jet lag and Wildfire’s pressing to-do list ending her rest.
He led her through to the dairy shed. “You ever been in a dairy before?”
She straightened her spine. “Doesn’t mean I can’t do the work.”
“Take a chill pill. I just didn’t want to explain things you already knew.” He pointed to two rows of metal stalls and rubber piping separated by a three-foot-deep cement trench between them. “This is a twenty-five-a-side herringbone dairy. The bales”—he pointed to a row of stalls—“are lifted by hydraulics to let the cows out. Makes it faster than just opening one gate at the end.”
He led her through the yards, explained the milking machines—which resembled four-legged rubber-and-metal spiders—and finished the tour in the vat room, his finger hovering over a big black button. “This is the fun part.”
She licked her lips. Big buttons she couldn’t press gave her a twitch in the left eye.
“Wanna press?”
She didn’t hesitate, just mashed it flat.
The dairy engine roared to life, the suction pump creating a soothing rhythm, like a heartbeat. The heartbeat of the farm.
A little piece of Sam’s heritage lodged itself in Kimberly’s heart. This was the sound of the Payton family’s passion, reverberating all around her. This was the sound Jules and her parents had based their lives around. This patch of dirt had been watered by the family’s sweat and blood for generations.
It was a home. And now she was getting a taste of it for a little while.
“You ready?” Sam held out a plastic apron, securing his own with his other hand. She viewed it askance. “It keeps most of the muck off.”
Most. Great.
She accepted the apron, tied it on with a grimace, and put her game face on. “Let’s do this.”
Butch joined them in the “pit,” as Sam called the space between the rows of cows, and milked fifteen cows in the time it took Kimberly to get the cups on her first one. These animals were big, at head height, and they kicked. If not for the kick bar at chin level, she’d be wearing a rearranged face.
Sam worked beside her, cupping ten of his own cows as he coached her through the process. His focus on her only increased her jitters.
Finally, the cups slurped up onto the cow’s teats and held tight. Kimberly moved onto her second cow. “I’ll get faster.” The words were more to herself than anyone else.
Sam shrugged. “Duh. You’re the fastest learner I’ve ever seen.”
Whoa. Okay, first he was being nice, and now an actual compliment? She sneaked a glance in his direction. Was this just part of a temporary truce, doomed to evaporate in several weeks, or something more genuine?
Within several hours she learned the basics of both hand and machine milking, how to chase cows without getting smushed against the fence, and the best part of the postmilking routine: ditching their soiled outer clothes outside and coming in for second breakfast. When some neighbor named Mick dropped by to talk to Sam, Kimberly scooped up her plate of fragrant scrambled eggs—laid only yesterday—a
nd retreated. She clamped a hot piece of buttered toast between her teeth as she headed for the sparse but clean guest room she’d been given. The toast differed from America’s somehow—blander, maybe? But it tasted decent.
Time to get some more Wildfire work done. It’d be an intense few weeks coming up, maintaining her Wildfire workload remotely while also looking into Jules and Sam’s financial rough patch.
She had just settled in at the ancient desk with a chair stolen from the dining table when Jules ducked into the room and eased the door closed. A bite of egg dropped from Kimberly’s mouth, hit her T-shirt on the way down, and landed on her gym shorts. She fumbled to rescue it from her lap. “Um—hi.”
“You any good at sneaking out?” Jules’s question was hushed and muffled against the door where she pressed her face to peek through the open crack.
“Umm . . .” Kimberly had never attempted it. Too desperate for Mom’s good opinion—what a waste of Saturday nights that had turned out to be.
Jules pivoted, a crutch beneath one arm, and flicked her gaze over Kimberly. “Doesn’t matter. All you have to do is get me a ladder.”
Kimberly’s eyes flickered between Jules and her brand-new moon boot. Jules tapped it. “Mick’s mum took me into the doctor while yous were milking.”
Based on Kimberly’s twenty-four hours here, yous was apparently Australia’s version of y’all.
Jules brandished her single crutch. “One down. One to go. I can’t waste this freedom sitting inside.”
“Okaaaaay . . .” Had she missed something obvious here? Jules was again dressed in a work shirt—though today’s was a green that highlighted her eyes—and denim shorts. She didn’t seem to be going anywhere special.
“I’ll be honest with you. That good-looking Irishman out there with a stupid tiny poodle is my ex-boyfriend.” Jules hopped closer and lowered her voice. Kimberly shut her laptop lid and leaned toward her. Lightning could strike this house and she wouldn’t move till she heard this. And what poodle? She hadn’t seen a poodle. “And even though our breakup was more than a decade ago, Mick’s slightly infuriated with me over how I broke my foot.”
Jules paused, a thoughtful finger on her chin. “And maybe the way I insulted him after.” She shrugged. “Either way, the kindest thing to do, obviously, is sneak me out the window rather than parade all this”—she did a full body roll—“past him.”
Kimberly grinned. “What do you need me to do?”
Chapter 11
Kimberly gripped her pilfered ladder with both hands and watched the moon-booted woman above her maneuver from a bedroom window to the top of an old tin water tank. A purple-flowered vine climbed one side of it and rust holes dotted its surface. Kimberly bit her lip. If Jules died climbing from that tank down onto this Kimberly-supplied ladder, then the Wildfire deal would definitely be off.
“So, I told you about my ex.” Jules spoke the words crouching on the tank roof, rubbing at her bad ankle. Disturbed dust floated down and tickled Kimberly’s nose. She sneezed. “You wanna tell me about Sam?”
Kimberly snapped to attention. “Oh no, we never—I mean, haven’t you seen his face when I—We didn’t date.” Her watering sinuses gave the words a nasally sound. She sniffed. Ugh. That made it sound like their nondating upset her.
Jules grinned and handed Kimberly her crutch. “That’s because he’s an idiot. It takes a special lady to sneak a thirty-one-year-old woman with a broken foot out a bedroom window.”
Kimberly’s face heated, but she couldn’t help but return Jules’s grin as she propped her crutch against the tank. “I won’t deny either point.”
“You’re here for more than help finding his replacement, though.” Jules dropped her hat—with perfect aim—and it plopped onto Kimberly’s head. She presented Kimberly with her rear as she backed down the ladder, one painstaking step at a time. She didn’t put weight on her bad foot but clung to the ladder and shifted her good foot down each rung. The metal ladder moved and dug into Kimberly’s hands. She grunted in her effort to steady it, palms slippery in this humid air and morning sun, and Jules seemed to take it as affirmation. “You want him to come back permanently.” She paused her descent to look down at Kimberly.
Kimberly gulped. Jules had only just gotten her brother back and obviously needed him here. Would she be mad? “Ahhh . . . What would you think if I was?”
Jules shuffled down two more steps. “I’d be bloomin’ ecstatic.” She paused again, out of breath.
Kimberly studied her more closely. Had Jules been lying when she said she was up for this? Broken bones took a lot of energy to heal, and this escape route wasn’t exactly doctor sanctioned.
Jules shifted her grip on the ladder. “Mum would kill me for saying this when he’s just gotten back to ’Straya, but I think he belongs over there.” A pause. “With you.”
Kimberly absorbed the words, relief flooding her system. Thank goodness. Somebody on her side. “The board’s threatening to close us down if he doesn’t come back or find us an amazing replacement.” A weight lifted from her with the admission. Outside of Steph, she hadn’t been able to discuss the burden with anyone. And Steph had already been hounding her with emails this morning, asking if she’d talked about it with Sam yet.
Jules leaned her face against the ladder, still resting. “So you’re here to woo him?”
“Woo him?”
“Back overseas. Doing what he’s great at.”
“Um, I guess.” Wooing wasn’t how she’d describe it, but it summed up the situation.
“I’ll help you. Woo.” Jules winked over her shoulder and shifted down a step. “Between the sister and the nemesis, he’s doomed. Oh—” She halted. “Sorry about the nemesis crack. He just likes to complain, is all. He’s an old whinger.”
“Believe me, I’m aware of Sam’s attitude toward . . .” Kimberly faded off as it became obvious Jules was staring at something over her head.
“What the—?”
Kimberly twisted as far as she could without letting go of the ladder. Jules gave a shout and waved her arm. “Hey! Stop that! Don’t—” She scooted down the ladder with surprising speed and grabbed her crutch. Arms free, Kimberly turned to see two guilty-looking dogs dashing away from Jules’s indignant rampage. One dog was Meg the Kelpie, the other a white toy poodle that Kimberly could swear was grinning.
Jules dropped her crutch to scoop up her dog and aim a moon-booted kick that missed the poodle by a mile.
“Jules?” Heavy footsteps sounded from the front stairs. Sam and Mick appeared around the corner of the house. Sam’s gaze darted from Jules to the window to the ladder to Kimberly. Her cheeks flushed, and she broke eye contact. Jules’s ex was a far more interesting subject. The man looked both out of place and completely at home, sporting board shorts, flip-flops, a blue cotton tank, and a battered farm hat that matched Jules’s. His skin freckled heavily over his toned shoulders and arms.
Mick’s attention, however, was fastened on Jules. “What’s wrong?”
“Your ridiculous poodle”—Jules cuddled Meg closer—“took advantage of my poor, innocent Meg.”
“Advantage?” The two men’s mouths dropped open as one. They spoke at the same time.
“How was that even possible?”
“Nice work, mate.”
Mick whistled. The poodle trotted over to his side and offered its paw. Smirking, the man high-fived it and straightened. “See you ladies later.” He nodded to Sam and sauntered back to his truck.
Kimberly pressed her hands over her mouth to stop the laugh that threatened. She’d just found an ally in Jules, who was currently shouting threats at the poodle and obviously unable to see the funny side of things.
She wouldn’t risk this new friendship for the world.
Chapter 12
Sam hustled across the muddy yard after a rushed lunch on Sunday, two days after the incident Kimberly called Poodle-Gate, as thousands of raindrops launched an assault to breach Dad’s old oilskin
jacket. He rounded the corner of the shed and stopped dead in his tracks.
Kimberly.
Standing on an upside-down bucket.
On top of a hay bale.
On the back of the ute.
She was doing something with the machinery shed’s guttering. A borrowed red flannel shirt—his red flannel shirt—clung to her body, and a stream of water cascaded from her ponytail. She had to be soaked. How long had she been out here? They’d all been at church only two hours ago. He opened his mouth to yell, then stopped. Better not startle her. Instead, he scooped up some gravel from the sodden ground and tossed a pebble at the shed roof next to her. It took three throws before she looked at him.
“Are you crazy? That’s not safe!” He had to shout to be heard over the downpour, rain streaming from the brim of his hat.
She shrugged and pointed to something. He squinted. A rope, looped around her waist and knotted in the shed’s rafters. From what he’d observed of her knots in the past few days, she might as well have made a harness from single-ply toilet paper.
He made sure she was watching and braced, then climbed onto the back of the ute himself. The only part of this situation that was really surprising was that it’d taken him this long to catch her doing something like this. He had to admit, after the three days she’d spent here, the girl had grit. Her body could barely keep up with her ambition. Before this she’d never done a day’s physical labor in her life, and now she’d thrown herself into farming like Scrooge McDuck into his money pool. Plus, she’d spent all hours of the day and night completing both her Wildfire work and inspecting Jules’s financial data. He admired the work ethic. But it was only a matter of time before her never-give-up attitude led to let’s-climb-stupidly-high-things-without-Sam.
He got to his feet in the tray of the ute and touched the wet denim at her knee to let her know he was there.
“Almost done!”
A pile of decomposing leaves—and was that a mouse?—rained down on him from above.
