Bella glared at the obstinate old grader, wiped her sweaty face on her shirtsleeve and glared at it again.
Her day had not started well. The machinery shed was already stinking hot, even though she’d thrown all the doors open, and now the damn grader wouldn’t start. She pressed the starter button again and listened without much hope while the motor strained, trying . . . trying . . . to kick over.
To her surprise, it gave a loud phut this time – the sound that usually preceded a diesel motor chugging to life – but then the bloody thing sputtered and stopped again.
Heap of shit.
The grader was an old thing her dad had bought second-hand from the council to use on roads and firebreaks, but Bella didn’t have a clue how to fix it. If it had a petrol motor, she could have checked the spark plugs, at least, but a diesel motor didn’t have spark plugs. She’d hit a brick wall.
Thoroughly annoyed, she stabbed the starter one more time. Stabbed it hard, angrily. And – what the hell – stabbed it again.
It gave a sick click and . . . died.
Silence filled the shed.
She’d flattened the battery.
Bella let out a groan of pure frustration. Of all the things on the property to break down, this grader had to be the one thing she knew next to nothing about. She knew heaps about utes – she’d learned to drive at an early age, and right from the start she’d known how to change a tyre or the oil, even to replace a fan belt. She was quite at home in the workshop. She’d hung around watching, asking questions and she’d even learned how to weld and to use the bench drill.
Around the property, she was pretty useful, too. She knew about float valves in the water troughs and the gate valves on the irrigation channels.
The one domain she’d left entirely to her father and brother was tinkering under the tractor bonnet – or on this bloody grader.
Crap. She’d never get the breaks cleared at this rate.
Grim-faced, she climbed down and gave the tyre a good kick to let off steam. She wasn’t going to let a piece of machinery beat her. She had to try to stay calm.
Teeth clenched, she marched to the front of the grader and inserted the crank handle through the hole. The motor was very stiff, but she kept winding and winding . . . making sure she didn’t grip too hard in case it sprang to life and whacked her wrist . . .
Not a hope. The motor was dead.
Exhausted, Bella knew she was defeated. Defeated and mad. She hated the idea of asking for help on the very first job she tackled here at Mullinjim, but what choice did she have?
Liz was sitting at the kitchen table with Gus sprawled across her feet, poring over old recipe books when Bella stormed in.
‘Mum would never let us bring Gus inside.’
‘Grader playing up?’ Liz asked lightly.
Scowling at her aunt, Bella realised Liz looked as if she’d been crying. Again. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ Liz said, blowing her nose. ‘Gus and I went for a nice long walk along the river this morning.’
‘Oh?’ And this produced tears?
‘There was something I needed to check out,’ Liz said. ‘You know . . . a bad memory . . . ’ Liz tried for a smile and missed. ‘Making peace with the past.’
‘I – I see.’ Bella frowned. She didn’t really see at all and she wondered if she should ask more questions. ‘So you’re okay now?’
‘Yes, darling, I’m fine.’
‘You – you don’t want to talk about it?’
Liz smiled and shook her head. ‘I’m fine. Honestly.’
If she wasn’t so mad about the grader, Bella might have hung around to make sure Liz really was okay, but she was rather consumed by her problem.
She marched to the phone, dialled Luke’s number and, just her luck, her call went straight through to his message bank.
Suppressing an urge to sigh heavily into the receiver she delivered her message. ‘Luke, it’s Bella. I need to get the grader started, but it’s playing up. Can you give me a call on the sat phone?’
Hanging up, she turned to Liz. ‘I’ve done everything possible with that thing. I’m supposed to be out there now, clearing those breaks. I’m so pissed off.’
‘If you can’t get through to Luke, why don’t you try Mac?’
‘I don’t want to bother him. He’s already taken care of our side of his boundary. He’s done enough for us.’
Liz’s eyebrows lifted. ‘What about Gabe then?’
‘No thanks.’ Bella ignored the zap that the mere mention of Gabe’s name caused. ‘I can’t ask him. I’ve already told him I don’t need his help. It would be too humiliating.’
Her aunt regarded her over the top of her reading glasses, her expression an annoying mix of amusement and disbelief.
‘Anyway, what’s with the recipe books, Liz?’ Bella challenged. ‘I thought you were taking out the supplements to the cows and calves.’
‘All done.’
Just showed how much time Bella had wasted on the flaming grader.
Liz closed an old exercise book and sighed. ‘I’ve been scouring my mother’s handwritten recipes, hoping for inspiration.’
‘You don’t have to worry about fancy food for me, Liz. I’d be happy with a sausage wrapped in bread.’
This made Liz laugh. ‘So would I for that matter.’
‘Matter of fact,’ Bella added. ‘I’ve been dying to go down to the river and have a campfire. We’d need to be careful with everything so dry, but out in the sand close to the water should be okay.’
‘Sounds good. Actually we could do it tonight. It’d be fun.’
Bella nodded. ‘I’ll need cheering up if I can’t get this grader started.’ Grabbing the sat phone from its niche above the kitchen bench, she headed outside, letting the flyscreen door slam behind her.
An hour later Bella was so fed up she thought she might self-combust. Luke hadn’t rung her, she’d made no progress with the grader and her arm was almost dropping off from wrestling with the crank handle.
She was sitting, slumped on a petrol drum, holding her aching head in her hands, when she heard a vehicle pull up outside. She tensed, knowing it couldn’t possibly be Luke. He was a good day’s drive away at Charters Towers.
A door closed and the crunch of footsteps sounded on gravel.
Reaching for a rag, Bella wiped her greasy hands as a long-legged shadow fell across the sunlit doorway.
She jumped to her feet a split second before Gabe appeared.
‘I hear you’re having trouble with the grader,’ he said, strolling into the shed with the kind of nonchalant bravado of a movie cowboy entering a western saloon full of bad guys.
Bella gripped the greasy rag as if it was a weapon. ‘I told Liz not to call you. I said I can manage.’
‘Can you?’
The question floated towards her in the dusty sunshine.
Bella shot him a death stare, but he was immune to the insult and he continued walking towards her. At least he wasn’t smug or smiling.
‘Have you tried, “Start You Bastard”?’
‘Great help you are.’ Bella rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve been swearing at the bloody thing all morning.’
Gabe laughed then, his grey eyes suddenly flashing with warmth and with a sparkle that might have made her nervous if she wasn’t too busy fuming.
Without another word, he walked to a shelf at the back of the shed and picked up a spray can.
‘This is what you need. It’s an ether-based spray and it goes on the air intake.’
Oh.
Standing still as a soldier, Bella refused to look pleased or grateful as Gabe came towards her with the can. He held it out so she could see the name clearly on the label – Start You Bastard.
‘Give it a go,’ Gabe said. ‘I’ll crank, while you spray this into the air intake.’
Bella swallowed. With the slightest dip of her head, she accepted the can and read the instructions. It was so maddening to know it had been sitting there on the shelf, staring at her all morning.
Her chin was haughtily high as she shook the can and held it in position while Gabe reinserted the crank handle.
‘Okay,’ he called.
After only two goes, it started, chugging loudly.
Sooooo embarrassing.
‘Let it run for a while,’ Gabe called to her over the rattle of the motor. ‘You want to get a charge back into that battery.’
Bella nodded, grudgingly, and together they walked back to the door of the shed, away from the rumble.
‘Thanks.’ She made an attempt at humility. ‘I should have known about this stuff.’ She gave the can a shake, but she couldn’t smile.
‘I guess I don’t have to tell you that you shouldn’t take the tractor out to push firebreaks till the battery’s properly recharged.’
‘Yeah, I’ll let it run.’
She wanted to be gracious and grateful, but she couldn’t. She was mad – with herself and mad at Gabe, too, and mad with Liz who’d obviously ignored her instructions not to phone him. It was infuriating to be shown up as a helpless girl on her very first day.
‘Don’t worry.’ Gabe was watching her with a shrewdly narrowed gaze. ‘I’m not hanging around.’ Deadpan, he added, ‘And there’s no need to vent your spleen on Luke.’
Luke? ‘What do you mean?’
‘He asked me to drop over. He got your message and then he rang me. Said he knew this grader had been sitting idle for months and he guessed you’d have trouble.’
‘Well – ah – thanks. It’s very good of you. I’m grateful.’ Bella was wondering why Luke couldn’t have just told her over the phone about a simple, magical can of spray. But she was grateful to have the problem solved. She just wished she didn’t have to be grateful to Gabe.
He was looking way too familiar and gorgeous, standing there – all tall and tanned in a rumpled and faded cotton shirt and jeans, with that sparkling light in his eyes. The Gabe light, she had christened it when she was how old? Ten? Twelve?
The light had vanished two and a bit years ago when everything went wrong between them. It was beyond disconcerting to see it again now.
The sparkle was still there as Gabe opened the door of his ute and looked back at her.
‘Good to have you home,’ he said and he smiled, holding her gaze for a moment too long before he hopped into the driver’s seat and took off.