A Girl's Guide to the Outback

by Jessica Kate

  Some children fantasized of Disneyland as the place where their dreams came to life. To her, this farm was Disneyland with a flying carpet and fairy godmother to boot. From the smooth dip in the house’s wooden threshold—the wood worn down from a hundred years of family life—to the photos taped to the dairy’s dusty message board, the life the Paytons had here was more than she could have dreamed of. It was this sense of homecoming that Sam managed to re-create wherever he went—what was missing from Wildfire now. What it would never have again.

  She couldn’t bring herself to admit her failure to Steph just yet.

  She ducked under a low-hanging branch, Meg the Kelpie trotting faithfully at her side. Another tear leaked through. If she went home, she’d miss the birth of these pups. Yesterday, before the argument, Jules had guessed that Meg had three weeks to go and predicted a Christmas birth. She sniffed and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Stop crying. Another branch loomed ahead, and she kept an eye on it to make sure she didn’t whack her head.

  Meg barked. Kimberly scanned the landscape around her. Just the river to her right, trees behind and ahead, and a field of stubble to her left. No cow. “What’re you barking at, girl?”

  The dog barked again, more insistent.

  “Shut it, Meg.” Kimberly went to step forward. The twig beneath her foot moved.

  Moved?

  Snake!

  Kimberly leapt back with a shriek as the serpent struck at her. The dog launched forward, seized the snake, and gave it a vicious shake. Kimberly grabbed the low branches of the nearest paperbark tree and scrambled a few feet up off the ground. Could snakes climb trees? She clawed her way up a few more branches, spiky leaves and twigs tangling in her hair. Wrapping her legs tight around the bough, she ignored the rough bark tearing at her tender skin and focused on Meg.

  The Kelpie looked to be winning the battle as the snake flicked about uncontrollably. But then it caught Meg’s hind leg with its fangs. Kimberly screamed. No. Not this beautiful dog. Not with her in pup.

  Meg dropped the snake with a yelp, and the reptile slithered into a hole in the ground. The dog limped away, whimpering with each step.

  “Meg!” Kimberly slid down the branch, disregarding the splinters, and then jumped out of the tree. Her right foot jarred against the ground, shooting pain through her ankle. Not important. Meg. She had to help Meg.

  She stumbled toward the dog and scooped her up. Now what? It’d been a long walk down to this part of the river. And brown snakes were deadly to humans, let alone medium-sized cattle dogs.

  A sob tore from her throat. How was she going to get help in time?

  * * *

  Sam hunted for Kimberly along the bank of the river. He had an angry woman to sweet-talk.

  It’d been sixteen hours since Jules’s request that they work together, and he’d asked that he have the chance to apologize to Kimberly before Jules spoke to her. After all, Kimberly’s gut had been right, and all she’d gotten for her honesty was an earful from both him and Jules.

  Which led him here, dodging tree branches and spiderwebs as he walked along the riverbank. Today’s humidity was so high that the air felt heavy as he puffed along, sweat stinging his eyes. He cupped a hand to his mouth. “Kiiiiiimbeeeeeeerlyyyyyyyyy!” She’d left to round up strays just over two hours ago.

  He really should have apologized first thing this morning, but Kim had been avoiding him. Guilt pricked his conscience. He’d never thought before that his words had any lasting effect on her. She never seemed to care. But if yesterday was any indication, he’d been wrong. So, he dawdled along, brain focused less on his surroundings and more on composing one fabulous apology. Not only had Kimberly been right, but she’d been courageous enough to speak up when she knew both how he’d react and how it could affect her secret agenda of luring him back to Wildfire. She was chasing an impossible goal with that one, but still, her honesty had taken guts. She needed to know he appreciated that.

  A pounding sounded up ahead, to his left, away from the bush surrounding the river. Sam snapped his gaze up and jogged several paces, sticks crunching beneath his boots. He broke out of the riverside bush into a corn paddock. The corn stretched above his head, blocking his view. “Kim?”

  “Snake!” The ragged scream came from his right.

  Pure fear filled Sam’s veins, and he charged in the direction of Kim’s voice. Had she been bitten? Antivenom cured most victims, but when the hospital was hours away, those statistics changed.

  At the edge of the paddock, he spotted her. A hundred yards away, in the neighboring paddock of rye grass stubble, Kimberly dashed toward the gate. She had some sort of bundle in her arms, and a desperate speed in her legs.

  “Kim!”

  She changed direction for him.

  He reached her in under fifteen seconds, unarmed but ready to distract the reptile if necessary. But Kimberly stopped running, didn’t even look behind her, just dumped the bundle in his arms.

  Meg.

  “She was protecting me.” Kimberly’s voice sounded strange. Sam pulled his gaze from the limp dog to her face. Torrential tears stormed from her red eyes. “I accidentally stepped on a snake, and when it struck at me Meg bit it and shook it. But it flicked around and got her.”

  The dog wriggled in his arms. No ill effects yet—but it’d only be a matter of time. They’d lost a dog like this when he was a kid.

  Sam adjusted his grip on Meg. Jules would know what to do. “The ute’s two paddocks away. I’ve been walking the bank looking for you.”

  They ran across the uneven ground, Kimberly’s breath coming in gasps. Finally, they reached the vehicle. He jumped into the passenger seat with the dog. At the wheel, Kimberly crunched the gears, and they took off at an unholy speed. The engine screamed.

  “Kim, gear change!”

  She shoved the gear stick into third, and they fishtailed out of the paddock and onto the track. Kimberly was crying so hard he was afraid to contemplate how well she could see.

  “It’s my fault,” she gasped. “I should’ve watched where I was going. N-now I-I-I’ve got her k-k-illed.” Another sob. “Jules is going to hate me.”

  Sam cradled the dog with one arm and used his phone’s virtual assistant to google what to do for a snakebite as they bounced along the track twenty k’s faster than they should have. Kimberly’s right hand squeezed the steering wheel so tight her knuckles whitened, and her hand on the gearstick between them shook. If his arms weren’t full of dog and phone, he’d have squeezed it. “It’s not your fault, Kim.”

  She just pressed her foot down harder.

  His phone buzzed and the computer voice read him the first of the search results. “If your vet is some distance away, if practical, you can apply a pressure bandage.” He pulled his T-shirt over his head and wrapped it as tightly as he could around the puncture marks on Meg’s hind leg.

  Jules must’ve seen their speed because she was already running as fast as her crutch would allow when they skidded to a stop next to the house. “What’s wrong?” Her face went white when she saw Meg.

  “Snake.”

  “Dunk her in the water trough. Keep her cool. I’ll call Mick.” She fumbled for her phone in her pocket.

  Sam ran for the paddock beside the dairy, where a concrete water trough held hundreds of liters of water and quite a few gross water weeds. Meg kicked and splashed as he lowered her in. “Easy, girl, you’ll be alright. Jules is gonna get help.” He stroked her ears. The puppies. Even if Meg lived, could the pups survive?

  Kimberly caught up with him, wheezing, and slid down into the dirt with her back against the trough. At the sound of her cough, Sam pulled his attention from the dog to the woman. “Hey, are you alright?”

  She just sucked in oxygen—too much oxygen. He shifted to hold the dog up with one arm and rub Kim’s back with his free hand. “Take deep breaths. Slowly. Don’t hyperventilate.” Her words from earlier replayed through his head. “This isn’t your fault. Jules isn’t
going to blame you.”

  She just covered her eyes with her hands, breaths increasing in speed. He squeezed her shoulder. In the three and a half years he’d known Kimberly, he’d never seen her panic. Not even that awful day when a car struck Juliette Berger in front of the Wildfire building and gave her a compound fracture to the leg. Kim had stayed calm, barked out orders, and administered first aid. She did what needed doing, no matter how many kids—and adults—were melting down around her. She was strong.

  But the woman in front of him had just blown past Panicville at a hundred k’s an hour.

  “Breathe, Kim.” He shook her shoulder until she looked at him. “In-two-three, out-two-three.” He repeated himself until she breathed in time with him. Rubbing her arm, he ducked his head to try to catch her gaze. “I meant what I said. Jules knows that you’re her friend and this isn’t your fault. She won’t be mad.”

  Kimberly’s gaze never even flickered up. Maybe a subject change would help distract her? “She’s not even mad about yesterday. She asked me to talk to you about it. For starters, I’m sorry for what I said.”

  “No, you’re not.” Her voice cracked on the words. “You said what you really think. You think I make things bigger than they need to be—why? Just for the fun of it? You think I like people being mad at me all the time?” She lifted her face, eyes fierce and red rimmed, hair damp across her forehead. Her raw expression was a punch to the throat. Kimberly Foster, queen of the poker face, sat before him with an expression as naked as hippies at a certain Byron Bay beach.

  She pushed her hair back from her face. “Did you know that I cried when I got the Wildfire job, I was so happy? I worked eighty hours in my first week because I wanted to impress you. And you think I’m this monster.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “Or a robot. You seem to alternate between believing me cold or straight-up out to get you.” She grasped at his fingers rubbing her shoulder and threw them away. Climbed to her feet.

  Her gaze landed on Meg, and her face contorted into tears.

  He stared at her, shock waves from her revelation reverberating across his brain. Flashbacks of their fights flickered past his mind’s eye. Had her anger been a cover for . . . hurt? Her single-minded ambition just a desire to impress?

  Each tear on her cheeks flayed his soul. He was the monster. Kim was one of the strongest people he knew. How could he have reduced her to this state?

  Kimberly pressed her lips together and swallowed her sobs down with visible effort. “I’ll find my own way to the airport.” She turned to leave.

  Sam rocketed to his feet. “Kim, wait.”

  She paused.

  Meg moved in his arms. He knelt again and lowered her back into the trough but kept his eyes on Kimberly. “I was way out of line yesterday.” From the way her gaze darted to his, those weren’t the words she’d expected him to say. Maybe if he kept talking, didn’t give her a chance to argue, she’d listen. “It took courage to tell us what we didn’t want to hear, and that’s something only a real friend would do. And the Wildfire thing just took me by surprise. Of course I’ll keep my word and help you find my replacement.” He hadn’t meant to imply otherwise yesterday. He just couldn’t take the job himself.

  Her shuddering breath was her only response.

  It cut like an oxy torch to a human appendage. He was the youth pastor. He was meant to help people who’d been hurt like this, not cause the hurt. She was right; he’d regarded her as somewhat of a cross between Godzilla and HAL 9000. Unreachable. And unhurtable.

  He’d been wrong.

  The uneven crunch of Jules’s footstep and crutch approached from the direction of the house. Sam twisted as far as he could to see without shifting Meg as a ute thundered up the two-mile-long driveway behind Jules. It screeched to a halt, and Mick jumped out clad in sweaty workout gear.

  He nodded at Jules and strode over to the trough. “Julia.”

  “Michael.” Her tone was curt.

  From the ute’s tray, the poodle barked. “Shut up, Killer.” Jules and Mick spoke at once.

  Mick knelt next to Sam and scooped Meg up from the water. “Hey, Megs.” His voice was gentle. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

  Sam wiped his wet forearms on his shorts—his shirt went with the dog—as Mick headed back to his ute.

  Jules’s crutch slowed her down, so Mick passed her before she even reached the trough. But she didn’t follow him. She headed straight for Kimberly and squeezed her in a hug that, from the look on Kimberly’s face, was both unexpected and a relief.

  Jules pulled back but kept a hand on each of Kim’s shoulders. “You okay?”

  “It didn’t bite me.”

  “I know. But are you okay?”

  The question seemed to surprise Kim as much as the hug. Had it been a while since anyone asked her that?

  “I—um . . . Meg—” She just stuttered until Jules spoke again.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t react well yesterday. But you were right. And if you’re happy to put up with lug nut over there, we’d love to hear your ideas.”

  Kimberly glanced over at Sam. He cleared his throat, tasting sweat and dust. “I hadn’t gotten to that part yet.”

  Jules’s gaze sneaked in Mick’s direction, then back to Kim. “Sam will explain. We’ve gotta get into town to the antivenom. I’ll see you later.” She hobbled off after Mick.

  Sam approached Kimberly with slow steps, her expression shifting back toward its usual neutrality the closer he got.

  Actually neutral was the wrong word. Her inability to meet his gaze gave her away, as did her fingers twisting in the hem of her shirt—a shirt that was now a mess of sweat, dog fur, and mud. She was embarrassed and trying to hide it.

  Some pastor he’d turned out to be. He rubbed a hand over his face, grit scraping his skin. “I am truly sorry for the way I reacted.”

  Kimberly’s gaze landed somewhere below his left ear. “Apology accepted.” Her voice was quiet, calm. But not confident. She might have forgiven him, but she didn’t trust that his attitude had changed. And after all these years, why would she?

  All he could do was prove it to her, try and reverse some of the hurt he’d caused. Which meant she had to stay. “Jules told me last night that you were right. She’s in more difficulty than I realized. She asked if we could work together to come up with ideas on how to fix it.” He offered a small smile. “She thought we might balance each other out.”

  Kimberly’s wary gaze met his own. “Do you want that?”

  He offered his right hand for a handshake. She looked at it a moment, then shook it, strength behind her dusty palm and soft skin. He released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and grasped her hand in both of his. “Not just a truce. An alliance. We’re on the same team.”

  “Team Jules.” A faint smile touched her lips, like the word team was the piece of triple-chocolate cake calling his name from Mum’s freezer.

  He nodded. “Team Jules.”

  Chapter 15

  Mick’s ute screeched to a halt in front of the main-street veterinary clinic and its peeling posters of happy cows. Jules struggled to wrangle her crutch and exit the ute holding Meg, who had grown increasingly weak. Mick’s lead foot had shortened the drive to thirty minutes, and Meg had probably been bitten ten minutes before that. They had to get to the antivenom now, or she wouldn’t make it.

  Mick yanked the parking brake into place. “Give her to me.”

  She handed the dog over, slid out of the ute, and landed on her good foot. But Mick still beat her to the door of Angel’s Touch Animal Clinic. Owner Glen Martin held the unique role of being the town’s only farm vet, New Age enthusiast, and Mick’s old boss from his high school years.

  Instead of barging into the building, Mick halted. She caught up and read the note on the door.

  Gone to impregnate 1000 cows. A phone number was scrawled underneath.

  Mick huffed and dumped the dog back into her arms. “Very funny, Glen.” He grabbed a credit
card from his pocket and had the door open in five seconds. The farm vet probably wouldn’t return for hours and operated his business from his phone far more than from his office. Jules would square up with him after the next milk check.

  They headed straight for the windowless examination room. The medical instruments and eerie quiet gave off a creepy vibe as the harsh fluorescent light contrasted against the darkened hallway and waiting room.

  Meg whimpered as Jules placed her on the table. Mick hooked up a saline drip with antivenom. “I know they said it was a brown snake, but Kim wouldn’t recognize the differences, and we all know Sam’s rubbish at identifying snakes.” There’d been a memorable incident when he’d mistaken a baby brown for a nonvenomous common tree snake. “I’ll give her a combined dose just to cover our bases.”

  Jules sniffed and wiped her nose against her sleeve, past caring about minor issues such as the lack of a tissue.

  Mick finished setting up the drip, then ran a calming hand across Meg’s side. “You realize that face you’re pulling right now? Multiply it by a million, and that was me.” His blue eyes bored into her conscience.

  Jules bit her lip. He must’ve been totally freaking out during those minutes when she was bloodied and unconscious, the ambulance still far away. “I know. I’m sorry.” She stroked the soft tip of Meg’s ear. “Please save her.”

  Mick touched her hand. “I’ll do my best. And the puppies—there’s a chance. We’ll just have to see how it plays out.”

  The silence stretched. Jules’s feet ached—both the booted one and the good one from bearing all her weight. But more uncomfortable was the awkwardness. Things still weren’t completely right between them. She cleared her throat. “And about what I said on the slip and slide night—I shouldn’t have needled you about your dad’s farm. I was just mad at myself. So sorry. Again.”