Nash thumped the steering wheel and swore loudly. He’d already known Ben Henderson was back—God knows it had been the talk of the town for the last few weeks—but that was the first time in more than six years that Nash had actually seen him.
Flashes of loud music and sirens rang through his mind, accompanied by images of a bonfire, and he shook his head angrily to dispel them. The bastard shouldn’t be here. What the hell did he think he was doing coming back to Bingorra?
His fingers gripped the steering wheel as he recalled the smirk on Ben’s face as he’d ogled Gemma. He’d done it on purpose to get a rise out of Nash. It’d worked too; it was only by clenching his fists by his sides that he had restrained himself from dragging Ben across the table. Nash would not give him the satisfaction of seeing him lose his cool.
In his rage, he hadn’t realised what he was saying when he’d told the girls to get back to Dunoon. Before then, he hadn’t even been intending to let them stay. Great, he thought, fuming. Now he was stuck with two city slickers and no idea what the hell he was supposed to do with them.
Gemma parked beside Nash out near the sheds, and the girls followed him inside, feeling like a pair of delinquent teenagers.
‘If you’re serious about working here, then that means no slacking off and heading into town to sit around in the pub all day, understood?’ Nash was looking at Jazz with an expression Gemma hoped to never find herself on the end of. ‘I’m responsible for you both. In future, you don’t just up and leave for town without telling me. If you’re serious about working here, then I need one hundred per cent commitment. If I assign you a task, I have to know you’re actually going to do it—if I then have to do it instead, it’s a waste of time I don’t have to spare. Understood?’ he repeated.
‘Understood,’ Jazz replied, holding his gaze without flinching. ‘But we have weekends off and you don’t get a say in how we spend our personal time.’
‘Fine,’ he snapped.
‘Then you, my friend, have yourself a deal.’
Nash stared at her grimly, no doubt wondering what he was letting himself in for. ‘Well, now that we have that sorted, I need you to take some feed down to the weaners and make sure they have water.’
Once the back door had banged shut, Jazz grinned at Gemma like a Cheshire cat. ‘See, I told you everything would work out.’
‘But we still have no idea what we’re doing!’ Gemma protested. ‘What the hell’s a weaner and what on earth do we feed it?’
‘That, my dear worrywart, is what Google is for.’
‘I can’t believe we’re doing this,’ Gemma groaned, following Jazz to her room to fire up the laptop.
‘Here we go,’ said Jazz, moments later, tapping on the keyboard. ‘What is a weaner?’
Gemma shook her head and looked up at the ceiling as if for some kind of divine guidance.
‘A weaner is a term used for a calf when it’s been weaned off its mother’s milk,’ Jazz read out cheerfully.
‘Okay, so what does it say we feed them?’
‘What do weaners eat?’ Jazz said as she typed and hit enter. ‘A precondition ration for calves should include a mix of corn, sorghum, barley, wheat or oats and legume-hay, plus a concentrated supplement that includes protein.’ She looked up at Gemma. ‘Simple! Come on, let’s go and see what we can find.’ She got up to head out of the room, but stopped when she noticed Gemma’s feet. ‘You can’t wear sandals out there.’
‘Why not?’ They weren’t even her good pair. They were comfy leather ones she’d had for ages and it was hot. She didn’t want to stuff her feet into boots on a hot day like this.
‘Have you ever seen a jillaroo wearing sandals?’
‘Again, yet another reason I’ve never had any desire to be a jillaroo.’
‘Put your boots on and I’ll meet you outside,’ said Jazz.
Gemma grumbled all the way back to her room, where she rummaged through her suitcase and pulled out the long rubber boots she’d bought in a trendy little boutique down near The Rocks. Hmm, not too shabby, she thought, taking a moment to admire them in the mirror before rushing outside to find Jazz standing beside Nash’s ute.
‘So what the hell are we going to do about—?’ Gemma stopped when she caught Jazz’s warning glance. Just then Nash moved around the rear of the vehicle.
‘About what?’ he asked.
‘About . . . global warming,’ she said lamely.
‘You have a plan?’ He eyed her sceptically.
‘No,’ she hedged. ‘Not really.’
‘Nice boots,’ he said in a neutral tone.
‘Thanks. I like them.’
‘What are you wearing?’ Jazz gaped at Gemma’s purple and pink heart-printed gumboots.
‘My new gumboots,’ said Gemma.
‘I told you to pack work boots,’ Jazz whispered.
‘I didn’t like those. I saw these and fell in love with them.’
‘But they’re not work boots,’ said Jazz.
‘They’re my work boots. Do they look like something I’d wear anywhere else?’
‘If you’re both done with the fashion show,’ said Nash tiredly, ‘I’ve loaded the feed and shown Jazz where it’s kept so you two can take over doing this for me each day. I’ll have the rest of this seeding done by the end of the week and then I’ll need you to help with ear tagging, vaccinating and drenching. I don’t have time to take you out and show you around the place, so you’ll have to make do with the mud map on the back of that list of jobs for today. Once I get this seed in, I’ll have more time to show you where everything is. Think you can manage okay?’
‘Of course we can!’ Jazz gave him a reassuring wave before he walked away.
Gemma looked at her friend.
‘What did I tell you?’ Jazz said smugly. ‘We can do this.’
‘He’s only letting us stay because he’s run off his feet.’
Jazz shrugged before moving to climb up into the driver’s side. ‘Come on, get in before he changes his mind.’
‘Ah, no. I’ll drive,’ Gemma said holding the door when Jazz went to close it.
‘Oh come on, I’m not wasted, I only had a few drinks before you showed up.’
‘Gemma will drive.’ Nash’s cold voice cut in from behind them, making both girls jump.
‘I’m fine,’ Jazz said, rolling her eyes sarcastically. ‘It’s not even a real road we’re driving on.’
‘Get out of the car.’
Gemma glanced anxiously between the two. Nash’s tone was almost glacial as he held Jazz’s mocking gaze in a silent stand-off until, finally, Jazz slowly slid from the driver’s seat, making an overly grand gesture with her hand for Gemma to take her place.
Nash remained in place, unamused.
Gemma took a small step closer to him. ‘It’s okay, I won’t let her drive,’ Gemma said quietly, in an attempt to reassure him and saw something almost like indecision briefly flicker across his face, before his jaw unclenched and he seemed to relax slightly.
‘Make sure she doesn’t,’ he snapped before turning away and disappearing into the depths of the shed.
‘Is it just me or was that a little extreme and creepy?’ Jazz said in a sing-song voice under her breath as Gemma shut the door, her gaze still on the shed entrance Nash had gone into.
‘He was right. You could still be over the limit to drive. He was just being cautious.’
‘Covering his own arse more like it.’
‘What do you expect? He’s technically your employer—if you totalled his work ute his insurance probably wouldn’t cover it.’ She had no idea if their unusual position here was covered under workplace health and safety but, nevertheless, Jazz needed to grow up and start taking some responsibility.
‘Do you have any idea where we’re going?’ Gemma asked, taking her eyes off the dirt track briefly to glance at Jazz a little bit later as they drove along a rough dirt track away from the homestead.
‘There’s a set of stockyards around here somewhere and the weaners are in a yard nearby.’
Gemma was relieved when they found the yards after following the track for a few kilometres. The two girls unloaded the buckets of grain and dragged a small bale of hay across to the fence, then lifted it over the metal rails.
‘They’re so cute—look at those big brown eyes,’ Gemma cooed as the half dozen calves munched on their grain and hay.
‘Told you you’d like this farm work stuff.’ Jazz smirked.
‘I don’t know about the work so much. You sure wouldn’t need a gym membership if you did this all the time.’ Just lifting the bale of lucerne over the rails had made Gemma’s arms shake. ‘What’s next on the list?’ she asked, wiping sweat from her forehead as she watched Jazz pull the piece of paper from her top pocket.
‘Feed the dogs, clean out their cages, check the water in the troughs, feed the chooks and collect the eggs,’ said Jazz.
‘Oh, is that all?’ Gemma gave her friend a desperate look.
‘At least it’s not too complicated. Even we should be able to work out how to do most of this stuff on our own.’
With the roughly drawn map in her lap, Jazz gave directions to where the water troughs were supposed to be located, and they bounced along the corrugated track.
‘Look at all this,’ Gemma said, looking out at the countryside. ‘It’s amazing to think we’re the only two people for miles and miles.’ For some reason this space that had intimidated her only yesterday now didn’t seem so scary. Maybe it was the way Nash had described it so vividly in the car earlier. Seeing it from his perspective had made her look at it differently.
‘Isn’t it great?’ said Jazz. ‘Imagine living like this all the time.’
Gemma grinned. ‘I know you’re channelling McLeod’s Daughters right now, Jazz, but can you really see yourself giving up the nightlife and shopping back in Sydney for this?’
‘You sound just like my mother,’ Jazz groaned. ‘Is it so bad that I wanted to come out and experience it for a while? Do something I’ve always wanted to try?’
Gemma sighed. Jazz went into everything at full speed. There was never anything half-hearted about her, it was all the way or nothing, in life and in love, which was why Gemma was so worried about her ridiculous plan of fulfilling her ‘cowboy’ dream. Knowing Jazz, she wouldn’t be happy until she’d got it out of her system.
‘No,’ Gemma said. ‘It’s not a bad thing. But this is Nash’s livelihood and it looks as though he’s going through some pretty stressful times. I just don’t think we should add to his problems.’
‘Hello? We’re helping him, not adding to his problems.’
Sure. How on earth could two inexperienced city girls pretending to be experienced farmhands possibly add to the man’s problems? Gemma decided to keep her mouth shut and let Jazz enjoy her moment. She had a funny feeling this was going to blow up in their faces soon enough.
After dinner that night, Gemma carried a saucer and a bottle of milk outside and headed for the shed. She flicked on the torch she’d found next to the back door, and the narrow beam of light bounced merrily along the ground ahead of her. It was so quiet. She tried not to replay horror movie scenes in her head as she approached the large shed, its tin walls reflecting the small amount of moonlight. There was no sign of the cat, but earlier that day she’d caught sight of a flash of ginger fur disappearing into a corner, so she knew it was in here somewhere. She placed the saucer on the ground and poured in some milk. For some reason, the animal had been playing on her mind quite a bit. She felt kind of bad for yelling at it, but in her defence, rescuing an ungrateful cat after the stressful day she’d been having up to that point yesterday had not been what she’d needed.
‘Here you go, kitty,’ she said softly. ‘Maybe this will improve your disposition,’ she added under her breath, before replacing the lid on the milk bottle. There was something about its fierce ‘I don’t need any help’ attitude that just didn’t ring true. Not when she’d seen it watching them from the shadows on more than one occasion. She’d never had a pet—her mother didn’t like animals in the house—so she might be wrong, but it was almost as if it wanted to come out of the shadows but fear kept it hidden, fear that it covered up with ferocity when it felt cornered. She wanted to see if she could crack that tough exterior, and had decided to try for a peace offering of milk.
The walk back was much less creepy. Lights glowed warmly from the windows and back verandah. She didn’t see the dark form until it stepped out in front of her, when she let out a loud shriek.
‘Out for an evening stroll?’
She recognised the voice straight away, but her heart still pounded violently in her chest. ‘You scared me!’
‘What are you doing wandering around in the dark?’
‘I was—’ She paused, somehow knowing Nash wasn’t going to be too thrilled about her feeding feral cats. ‘I was looking for my cardigan. I thought I left it out here earlier.’ She slowly moved the bottle of milk behind her back, hoping he hadn’t seen it.
‘You should be careful walking around out here in the dark. Did you know most snakes do their hunting at night?’
Gemma’s gaze flew around the ground, expecting to see a slithering mass of reptiles like the pit scene in Indiana Jones. She shivered involuntarily at the thought.
‘Lucky for you I’m here to rescue you, should the need arise,’ Nash added.
Her gaze returned to his face and she could just make out his grin. ‘Very funny. Point taken. I will not be venturing outside in the dark again.’
He chuckled when he realised she was waiting for him to lead the way back. Gemma meekly followed behind, resisting the urge to grab a fistful of his shirt and jump on his broad back just in case there was a snake nearby.
The next day had been kept busy with a list of chores similar to the previous day. In the afternoon, Jazz took the ute out to check on the water levels in the troughs while Gemma made a start on dinner. Suddenly the radio on the bench crackled to life, startling her.
Earlier that day, Nash had shown the girls how to work the two-way radio located on the kitchen bench. He’d told them there was another one in the work ute if they ever needed to contact him and there was no phone reception.
‘Gem, are you there?’ came Jazz’s voice.
Gemma quickly wiped her hands on a tea towel and snatched up the handset to answer.
‘Press in the button before you talk, dummy,’ said Jazz before she had a chance to speak.
‘I know,’ said Gemma crossly.
‘Took you long enough to answer. What were you doing?’
‘My hands were wet. What’s wrong?’ asked Gemma.
‘Nothing. I’m bored and this is free, so I don’t have to use up the credit on my mobile.’
‘You said you were going out to check the water troughs.’
‘I did,’ said Jazz.
‘Well, come back here and help me with dinner if you’ve got nothing to do,’ said Gemma.
‘You’ve got that all under control, and besides, you’re too anal to let me help, Ms Control Freak.’
‘I am not,’ said Gemma, indignant. Okay, maybe she liked doing things a certain way, but that didn’t make her a control freak.
‘I think we’re supposed to say “over” after we finish saying something,’ said Jazz. ‘Over,’ she added, laughing.
‘Jazz, I’ve got stuff on the stove.’
‘You didn’t say “over”. How am I supposed to know you’ve finished talking if you don’t say “over”? Over.’
Gemma closed her eyes. ‘Why don’t you call Nash and see if he has something else for you to do while you’re out there?’ she suggested. There was a deafening silence before she gave an irritated sigh and pressed the mic button again. ‘Over.’
‘That’s better,’ said Jazz. ‘I’m not calling the boss man. God only knows what he’d think up for me to do. Now if you asked him I bet it’d be different. He likes you,’ she added in a cheeky tone. ‘Over.’
‘Would you please knock it off? I’m pretty sure the last time I heard anyone say “over” on a radio was on reruns of Skippy. I’m getting off this thing. I have stuff to do—unlike some people.’
‘Have you two finished messing around?’ came Nash’s deep voice.
There was a long, embarrassed silence before Jazz said, ‘Sorry, boss. I didn’t know you could hear.’
‘The whole district can hear; it’s an open radio frequency. Now get back to work.’
The whole district? Gemma felt as though she might actually sink to the floor in a mortified puddle.
‘Roger that, ten-four, good buddy,’ Jazz said in a very bad imitation of a trucker’s voice. ‘Over,’ she added a few seconds later.
Gemma shook her head in despair. Why did she allow Jazz to keep getting them into these situations? The sizzling hiss of water bubbling over onto a hot stove snapped her out of her humiliation. As she hurried to attend to the pasta, she was grateful that sowing long into the night would keep Nash out of the house until she had gone to bed.
Nash was usually up and out on his tractor before the girls woke up, and unless he came back for something from the shed, they didn’t see him until dark. Having noticed that he took out a thermos of coffee and a small esky of food when he left early in the morning, Gemma had begun making sandwiches for him while she cooked dinner. The two girls ate dinner by themselves once they’d finished all the jobs Nash had listed for them, and Gemma left Nash a plate either in the oven or in the fridge to reheat when he came in. Though Nash had told her she didn’t need to cook for him, she had seen how tired he was when he came in at night—too tired to prepare a meal. And it wasn’t as if it was a hassle to rustle up an extra portion when she was already cooking for two.
After that first night when Gemma had caught him coming into the kitchen, she’d fallen into the habit of having a cup of tea before bed, which always seemed to coincide with the time when he finished work. She was just being a polite guest, she’d told herself more than once.
Now she looked up as the back screen door squeaked open, and felt that strange little flutter in her stomach that his presence always triggered.
‘Hi,’ said Nash, looking bone weary.
‘How’d it go out there?’ asked Gemma. ‘Getting closer to finishing?’
‘I reckon by tomorrow I might have it all in,’ he replied.
‘That’s great. Bet you’ll be glad when that’s over,’ she said, smiling in genuine relief for him.
‘You’re not wrong. Then it’ll be time to start on the cattle and sheep, then spray and then harvest, and start all over again with the winter crops,’ he said with a tired smile.
‘It doesn’t end, does it?’
‘Nope.’
Yet again Gemma tried to comprehend how farmers coped with the endless highs and lows they experienced. She was ashamed to realise just how much she had taken food for granted, rarely considering where it came from, not to mention the work that went into producing it. She knew farmers worked hard, but never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined what it must cost them.
Getting up, she took his plate out of the oven and brought it over to the table. She placed it down and took up her seat on the other side of the table, picking up her mug of tea.
‘Tell you what, though,’ he added in a brighter tone, ‘it’s been great to come home to a hot meal each night.’
‘It’s nothing special,’ said Gemma, trying not to beam at his compliment.
‘It’s better than anything I could make, and I really appreciate it. Sorry I haven’t thanked you properly before.’
That wasn’t true, thought Gemma. He always thanked her after he finished his meal. ‘It’s nothing, really,’ she said. ‘I have to cook dinner for me and Jazz anyway.’
‘It gives me something to look forward to each night,’ he said quietly, his gaze holding hers.
Gemma swallowed nervously as her heart rate marked double time and her cheeks went warm. Holy moley, she thought a little breathlessly. With one look the man had her going all Mills and Boonie. How was this possible? She’d gone out with men, usually ones she’d grown up mixing with within her family’s social network. Safe, well-mannered, scared-of-her-father kind of men, and none of them had ever made her feel the way she did when Nash was around her.
‘Well, I feel bad that you’re out there working long after we’ve finished for the day,’ she said, trying to sound unflustered.
‘It’s my job.’ He shrugged, dropping his gaze to the plate and picking up his cutlery. ‘Besides, I feel bad enough giving you work to do when I don’t even pay you. I still can’t wrap my head around that. Why would anyone want to work as a holiday?’
‘People pay to come and work on places like this. Technically we’re getting a bargain. Maybe you should tap into that market?’
Nash gave a chuckle. ‘Yeah, maybe I should before someone wakes up and realises it’s the wrong way round.’
It did seem weird, but Gemma had seen the figures and they showed that farmstay/working holidays, particularly in the overseas tourist sector, were big business.
Over his meal the last few days they’d talked about a surprising range of things; he asked a lot of questions, and seemed genuinely interested in her life back in the city. She’d told him that she’d just finished her business degree and would be starting work when she returned to the city, but after that she always managed to change the subject so she didn’t have to talk about taking up her role in the family business. Every time she thought about it she felt those now-familiar knots in her stomach.
‘So your father was okay with you taking time off before you started work?’ Nash asked tonight, seemingly out of the blue.
Gemma felt her stomach automatically tighten. ‘Well, I think he’d have preferred that I started straight away, but my mum talked him into letting me have a bit of a sabbatical.’
‘He’s more understanding than I am with my sister.’
After several fruitless attempts by Nash to contact Brittany, Jazz had finally got hold of her, but she hadn’t been too contrite about the missing details. The more Gemma heard about the girl, the more annoyed she felt on Nash’s behalf. Jazz had convinced Brittany to call her brother, so at least he knew she was alive—whether she remained that way the next time he saw her, though, was another story.
‘I guess she just wanted to hold on to her last remaining days of freedom. It’s kind of hard to give up.’ As she spoke, Gemma realised she was talking more about herself than his sister.
‘But she knows she’s got responsibilities here. She would never have got away with this kind of crap if Dad were still alive.’ Nash frowned.
‘Well, in fairness, once Jazz got the idea in her head she made it pretty hard for Brittany to turn down. Jazz can be very persuasive when she wants to be.’
Nash shook his head. ‘I had more faith in my sister than that—or at least the sister I once knew. I thought she loved this place as much as I did. The last few years it seems like she’s changed.’
‘Maybe she just wants to spread her wings a little?’ Gemma asked gently.
‘Some of us didn’t get that choice.’
Hearing the bitterness in his words, Gemma waited to see if he would elaborate.
He paused as he sliced through his steak and lifted his gaze to hers. ‘Five years ago my dad got sick and couldn’t handle this place on his own, so I came back to help out. It changed a lot of things around here.’
‘Where were you before that?’
‘In my third year of university.’
‘You pulled out of school to come back and help your dad? Did you ever go back and finish?’
‘Nah. Wasn’t much point. Dad passed away about eight months later and by then I had too much to do here.’
‘So you weren’t always planning on being a farmer?’ She knew she’d said the wrong thing when his face went stony, and he quickly finished the rest of his meal in silence.
‘Thanks for dinner,’ he said at last.
Gemma watched in confusion as he put his chair back under the table and gave her a brisk nod goodnight.
That was strange, she thought as she stared at the empty doorway through which he’d left. Given his dedication to the work, she’d pegged him as a die-hard farmer, so what should she make of tonight’s revelation that he’d once lived in Sydney and gone to university? And why, for that matter, was he being so hard on his sister for not wanting to come back here when clearly it hadn’t been in his plans either?
Nash tugged off his shirt and dropped it on the floor before collapsing onto his bed with a sigh. He shouldn’t have given Gemma the cold shoulder just now. She’d only asked a simple question, but it was the one question that somehow still managed to set off an emotional avalanche inside him. So you weren’t always planning on being a farmer?
The truth was that no, he hadn’t been planning on it. It had been more or less thrust upon him. He’d wanted to be an engineer and create things—help build amazing projects and get well paid for his trouble—and he’d hoped to spend some time working overseas. Instead, at the age of twenty, he’d found himself back at home, looking after his sick father and working himself into the ground while still struggling to make ends meet.
Immediately after thinking these bitter thoughts, he felt bad. His dad had always hoped that Nash would come back and help keep the place running. And for most of his life, Nash had thought that too—after all, that was what the Whittakers had always done. But during his last year at high school, everything had changed. All it took was one night and one wrong decision. After that, he’d wanted to leave this place as far behind him as he could. Guilt had a way of eating away at you.
Even before then, Nash had been fascinated by how someone could build massive high-rise buildings, and bridges that spanned astonishing distances. At eighteen, longing to escape Bingorra and all it now represented, he suddenly knew what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to be an engineer and travel all over the world—with the added bonus that he would go as far away from this place as he could get.
It had broken the old man’s heart when Nash finally told him he wanted to go away to uni and study engineering. He never said so, but Nash saw the sad look in his father’s eye. He helped out around the place while he was home on uni breaks, but it wasn’t the same—his father seemed to have lost his passion, and Nash knew that he was the cause of it. Why would his dad bother working his guts out to improve the place when he’d just have to sell up when he got too old to farm it himself? Nash blamed himself for the depression that had led up to his father’s illness. He sometimes wondered if by adding to his dad’s worries he’d helped hasten the stroke somehow.
At eighteen he hadn’t had the same attachment to the land his father had. He was an impatient kid who wanted more from life than surviving from one bad season to the next and hoping to get a few good ones in between. Now that he was older, though, he understood his father’s sentimentality. There were memories here, good and bad, and those roots grew up around your legs and planted you firmly to the ground. After his mother had died, his dad still saw her in every corner of the house. He’d refused to remove any of her clothes from their wardrobe; hairbrushes remained on the dressing table and her favourite perfume still lingered in their bedroom, clinging to her clothes and trapping his dad in the past. Looking back now, he realised the kid who had also missed his mother and who had been grieving had learned to grow up pretty fast. His dad had shut himself off from them and hadn’t had the strength to deal with his kids’ grief on top of his own. No amount of arguing or pleading could ever convince his old man to part with any of her things. The day after his father’s funeral, Nash had cleaned out the room, removing all of his parents’ clothes. Back then, he’d been angry at the world—angry at his father’s miserable death, angry at his own situation. He was still angry, he acknowledged; all he knew was that his future had been sealed when his father died and left him to provide for his kid sister, who was only sixteen at the time.
Nash stared up at the ceiling, his eyes stinging. Christ, he was tired. He willed himself to get some sleep. Nothing good could come out of going over all this crap now. Maybe when he finished sowing—in between all the thousand and one other jobs that needed to be done—he would have time to give more thought to the future.