A persistent ring woke her the next morning. Erin searched next to her bed for the phone, dragging it to her ear to mumble a groggy, ‘Hello.’
‘Big night?’ came the droll voice on the other end and Erin opened her eyes reluctantly.
‘No, Roxy. I just didn’t sleep well. What time is it?’
‘Six-thirty,’ she said far too chirpily for that time of the day. ‘Before I leave for work, I wanted to remind you about that conference call at ten o’clock this morning. Carol and Steven are driving me insane, I can’t wait until this whole deal is done.’
Securing the contract for placing a Health Hut in the foyer of every resort of a large Pacific hotel chain was a major coup. It was a big step, branching out from shopping centres, but once this deal was finalised the months of planning would be worth it.
Erin threw back her blankets and yawned, giving her wayward mass of curly hair a disapproving scowl in the mirror as she made her way into the kitchen with the phone. ‘You can’t blame them, this client’s huge.’
‘A huge pain in the butt more like it,’ Roxy grumbled.
‘I won’t forget,’ she promised, tucking the phone between her shoulder and cheek to fill the coffee machine. ‘I’m kind of insulted you thought you needed to call me to remind me, though.’
‘Hey,’ she said defensively, ‘I’m covering all the bases. If things go bad, it won’t have anything to do with me. Besides, I haven’t had a chance to find out what’s going on with you lately. How are you doing?’
It was true. Although they usually talked or emailed regularly throughout the day, it was all business. Things had been doubly hectic lately around the office with this new deal unfolding, and without the luxury of tea breaks or lunches, they hadn’t been able to talk like they usually did.
‘I’m fine. It’s just really hard watching her slip away.’
‘I wish I could get time off to come out to be with you.’
‘No, don’t be silly. I’m fine. I’m actually enjoying being out here. I think the break’s doing me good.’
‘Glad to hear it. You make sure you take care of yourself.’
Erin smiled at her friend’s out-of-character motherly advice. Usually Roxy was the one getting her into trouble, not talking her out of it.
In the distance Erin could hear the odd crow sounding forlorn and, in contrast, the cheerful chortle of noisy magpies outside in the yard. It was surprising how she’d come to love listening to the sounds around her, so different to the busy streets and the traffic of her apartment back in the city. Even the loud sound of contented munching sounded relaxing . . . She frowned. Munching? Erin pulled the kitchen curtain across and gasped. ‘I gotta go. The cattle are out.’
She heard Roxy’s confused, ‘What?’ but she was already putting down the phone. She had to get the cattle out of the house yard and back into the paddock before Jamie found out. ‘Crap,’ she muttered, rushing out to the verandah and pulling on her fluoro running shoes. Had she remembered to shut the gates after her run yesterday afternoon? She couldn’t remember. She thought she had . . . but obviously she’d missed one along the way.
Damn it! Her gaze swept the yard in despair as she saw the damage the cattle had already caused. They’d devoured lots of Gran’s plants and most of the roses Erin had been admiring the evening before. The grass was also churned up, with huge divots where cows had stomped their way through, sampling all kinds of new delights the house yard offered them.
‘Shoo,’ shouted Erin, moving down the steps and heading for the closest of the culprits. Two cows lifted their big heads to stare at her, stopping Erin cold. What the hell was she doing? These things were huge up close. And worse, they didn’t seem fazed by her feeble attempt to move them along.
I’ll just have to be more forceful, she thought, straightening her spine determinedly. ‘Go on! Get!’ she shouted, and this time the cattle moved, turning completely around to face her head on.
‘This is not good,’ she said, anxiously trying to judge how far from the house she was. A low moo drew her attention to the front yard, and she saw with a sinking heart that as well as the cattle in the front yard there were also cattle on the driveway and out on the road!
‘Oh, no!’ she gasped, as she stared at the scattering of brown and white animals along each side of the road.
Running her hands through her hair, Erin tried frantically to think. How was she going to get them all back in? She edged her way cautiously past the two cows she’d disturbed earlier, who had gone back to munching on rose leaves, and headed along the driveway.
She waved her arms in the air and shouted ‘Yah, yah!’ at the top of her lungs, startling two young calves and letting out a scream as they turned and ran without warning away from the gate. ‘No, not that way, you stupid things. Go back inside.’ She tried to cut them off, flailing her arms about in the air and feeling like she was doing a Kermit the Frog impersonation.
Their alarmed mooing triggered the other cattle nearby to call back, and Erin realised that she was in way over her head as an older cow with horns started trotting back down the road towards her. ‘Holy sh—’
Grabbing her phone from her pocket, she fumbled with the screen until she brought up the music icon. She needed something to distract them. What the hell kind of music did you play to distract cattle? Something country? She didn’t have anything country on her playlist. She kept an eye on the angry one with big horns still edging towards her and hit the first thing her thumb landed on.
A blast of ‘Working Class Man’ burst from the device, halting the cranky cow in her tracks and causing her to veer away. Encouraged by the cow’s reaction to Jimmy Barnes, Erin held the phone out in front of her like a weapon and walked around the nervous-looking cattle until she eventually managed to get behind them. With a combination of waving arms and loud music, Erin shooed the cows back down the driveway. Once they saw the opening into the top paddock, they picked up their pace and scooted as far away from the weird woman with her noisy contraption as they could.
Erin quickly shut them inside then turned the music off, dropping her head on her arm, resting on the cold metal gate, her heart pounding in her chest and her legs feeling weak.
The sound of a car approaching made her lift her head quickly and give an inward grown. Of course he had to turn up now.
‘Morning,’ a deep voice called.
‘Morning,’ Erin replied, trying to sound as casual as Jamie, who was sitting in the driver’s seat smiling smugly.
‘Nice outfit.’
Erin’s jaw clenched and she tried to ignore the blush creeping up her neck as she realised she was still wearing her bright polka-dot pyjamas.
‘I just got a phone call about some cattle loose on the side of the road,’ Jamie continued when she remained silent. ‘You haven’t seen any, have you?’ he asked, titling his head slightly.
‘Cattle? On the road?’ she repeated nervously. ‘Nope,’ she said, shaking her head and biting the inside of her lip to stop from saying anything that might give away the fib. She really wasn’t very good at lying, but she’d be damned if she’d admit that she’d forgotten to close the stupid gate and let his cattle escape. She tried not to think about what could have happened had someone hit one of them.
She followed his gaze anxiously as he looked past her at Gran’s yard and saw the churned-up earth and half-chewed plants.
‘So, no trouble here?’
‘Nope,’ she said casually. ‘Everything’s fine.’
Erin’s gaze slid away from his quickly as she made ready to flee inside. His next words froze her in place.
‘Then I guess there’d be a good reason why Mick Patterson’s cattle are in your top paddock?’
‘What?’ she asked faintly.
He nodded his head in the direction of the cattle lazily pulling at grass behind her. ‘These cattle belong to Mick up the road.’
‘They aren’t yours?’ Erin asked slowly.
‘Nope.’
‘But the gate was open . . .’
‘I sold a truckload of mine yesterday so there was no reason to keep the top gate shut. The rest of my herd are down in the bottom pasture.’
She’d just risked her life herding someone else’s cattle off the road?
‘Good job, by the way. Interesting technique you had going there.’
‘You were watching me this whole time?’ she gaped in disbelief.
‘Well, you seemed to have the situation under control,’ he said, a slow grin beginning to steal across his face.
‘I could have been killed!’
‘I was ready to jump in if they got away from you,’ he assured her.
Erin glared at him, too angry to speak. He’d just sat there and let her make a complete fool of herself. What a jerk! She turned on her heel and headed back towards the house.
‘Wait up, Erin. Come on, I was just teasing. You did a good job getting them off the road.’
Erin didn’t stop walking. Hearing his low chuckle from behind her, she gritted her teeth and pulled open the screen door, letting it slam shut as she headed inside to try to wash away her humiliation beneath a hot shower.