Gemma's Bluff E-Book

Karly Lane

• Herausgeber: Allen & Unwin
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Smart and reliable, Gemma Northcote has always done what's expected of her. So it's not surprising that after university she defers to her father's wish that she join the family business. Gemma's best friend, Jasmine, is a different personality altogether. She thrives on spontaneity, is unpredictable and has generally pursued her own path. When Gemma and Jasmine decide to spend a working holiday on a large rural property, their friends and family are surprised. Neither has any experience of country life (unless you count Jasmine's love of McLeod's Daughters) and they're not exactly farming types. Away from her family, Gemma feels liberated. The longer she's away the more she questions what she really wants to do with her future. Ultimately, she realises she needs to choose between duty and what's right for her in life - and love.

Leseprobe

First published in 2014

Copyright © Karly Lane 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

Arena Books, an imprint of

Allen & Unwin

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

Phone: [phone]

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.allenandunwin.com/uk

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia

www.trove.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 74331 726 6

E-book ISBN 978 1 92557 586 6

Typeset by Bookhouse, Sydney

To my children—Jessica, Kaitlin, Rourke and Milly.

May you always follow your dreams, but never lose your way back home.

Contents

Part 1

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Part 2

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Twenty-seven

Twenty-eight

Twenty-nine

Thirty

Acknowledgements

Part 1

One

‘Look out!’

A grey blur streaked past the front of the car and Gemma Northcote swerved, fighting the impulse to shut her eyes to block out the horror unfolding before her. Everything slowed down as the car spun out of control, then slammed to a sudden halt. Closing her eyes, Gemma heard the airbags detonate, and the impact slammed her back into her seat and knocked the breath from her chest. Then all she could hear was her own laboured breathing.

At a faint moan beside her, she snapped her eyes open. ‘Jazz? Are you okay?’

‘Oh my God. Are we dead?’ Jazz asked, turning her head from side to side tentatively before undoing her seatbelt.

‘I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I’m still a size twelve.’ Gemma shakily followed Jazz’s lead and fumbled for her seatbelt release. ‘Are you alright? Can you move your arms and legs?’

‘I think so. What about you?’

‘Yeah, I’m okay,’ Gemma said uncertainly.

‘We should get out of the car. What if it blows up or something?’

‘Don’t you have to smell petrol before that happens?’ Gemma asked, sniffing the air anxiously.

‘Do you really want to wait and find out?’

Deciding not to argue the point, Gemma hunted around for the door handle beneath the now deflated airbag. The door stuck slightly and she had to use both hands to push it open. Looking down, she noticed that her hands had started to shake. She slowly eased herself out of the driver’s seat and stepped from the car. Holding onto the doorframe, she looked around, trying to get her bearings. Jazz swore under her breath as she staggered up from the ditch her side of the car had ended up straddling.

Gemma’s gaze fell on a lump in the middle of the bitumen. ‘Oh no,’ she whispered.

‘You killed Skippy!’ Jazz said reproachfully.

‘You think it’s dead?’ asked Gemma, staring at the limp form of the big kangaroo.

‘Pretty sure they don’t normally lie that still. We should move it off the road. We can’t just leave it there.’

Gemma edged towards the animal, her heart thudding. She’d never been so close to one before. Standing above it, she looked down and saw the soft, thick fur of the animal’s underbelly. ‘Aren’t we supposed to check for babies in the pouch or something?’

‘Don’t look at me. I’m not sticking my hand inside a dead roo.’ Jazz stood well back on the side of the road.

‘We have to check,’ Gemma insisted.

‘Then may I suggest establishing if it’s male or female before you go poking around looking for a pouch?’

‘And how the hell do you tell that?’

‘Um—lift up its tail?’

‘I’m not lifting its tail! You do it.’

‘You killed it,’ Jazz pointed out.

Grimacing, Gemma crouched down behind the big animal and reached for the tail. ‘How do I know what I’m looking for?’

‘If it’s male I can guarantee you’ll work it out.’

Gemma put her hand gingerly around the tail and went to lift it, then tried with both hands. ‘Man, this thing is heavy,’ she panted.

‘Gem, drop the tail.’

‘You’ll have to look,’ said Gemma, craning her neck. ‘I can’t hold this thing up and bend down at the same time.’

‘Gemma,’ Jazz said more loudly. ‘Drop the tail now!’

‘Oh, for goodness sake, this was your id—’ Gemma stopped mid-sentence as she looked up into two big brown eyes that seemed to be trying to focus on her face. Dropping the tail, she staggered back, just as the animal began kicking and clawing its way onto its feet.

The girls screamed, trying to scamper out of its path, but the enormous animal was obviously still stunned and lurched towards them, tripping and sliding. They ran for the car, then jumped into the back seat and slammed the doors behind them.

‘You said it was dead!’ Gemma yelled.

‘Well, it didn’t look too healthy.’

‘It could have mauled me to death!’

‘You did hit it with a car,’ said Jazz. ‘It probably had good reason to be pissed off at you.’

After the kangaroo had loped off unsteadily into the bush, Gemma pushed open the door and went around to look at the front of the car. As she stared at the cracked bumper and the steam billowing out from beneath the crumpled bonnet, her shoulders slumped. They were stranded on the side of the road in the middle of who knew where, heading to a tiny blip on the map called Bingorra. They’d set off at some ungodly hour this morning, leaving behind their comfortable Sydney life to undertake this six-week ‘adventure’, working as jillaroos on a station in northwest New South Wales. It was now close to four o’clock, and they still hadn’t made their destination. This was the very last thing they needed.

Jazz came to stand beside her. ‘Look on the bright side,’ she said, wrapping an arm around Gemma’s waist.

‘And that would be?’

‘At least you’re not a roo murderer anymore. That’s good news, right?’

Gemma stared at her best friend and shook her head in disbelief. Usually she found Jazz’s Pollyannaish ways endearing, but right now she could have cheerfully strangled her. ‘Look at the car, Jazz. It’s totalled.’

‘Well, that’s what you paid an arm and a leg in insurance for. It’s a car. It’s replaceable. We’re not, and luckily we’re both okay.’ Jazz shrugged. ‘That’s a win in my book.’

‘I don’t know what lame-arse book you’re reading, but in mine, having a car we can’t drive is not a win. It’s a disaster!’

This was their worst idea ever, Gemma decided, and together she and Jazz had had—and acted on—their fair share of bad ideas. She should have known by now that nothing they planned would ever work out the way it was supposed to. She looked across at Jazz again and her frown deepened. Of course something like this wouldn’t bother her; Jazz never had a plan for anything. She’d changed her major three times in the last four years and still didn’t have a single degree to her name. She didn’t even seem fazed that she had no idea what she was going to do with the rest of her life. Apparently after four years, Jazz had had enough of university and was going to venture forth without a degree of any sort, which she had decided ‘were a waste of time having anyway’.

What had prompted Gemma to agree to Jazz’s crazy plan had been more of a knee jerk reaction to discovering she could no longer shrug off the realisation that her entire life now stretched out before her in a predictable shade of blandness. While everyone around her was talking excitedly about what they would do next—big, bright, beautiful dreams of amazing career opportunities, of travel and endless possibilities—it had dawned on Gemma that her entire future had been meticulously planned out for her.

Not that this had ever been any great secret. But for some reason, at that particular instant, it had been like a light bulb going on inside her brain, illuminating her life, and she suddenly saw it as if she was looking through someone else’s eyes. And it looked . . . monotonous.

There had never been any other option for Gemma. Every member of the family had always gone into the business. Her great-grandfather had started Northcote & Sons, and from then on it had been assumed that each generation would naturally follow in their parents’ footsteps. Everyone else in the family seemed to have found their own place within the company. Her father’s expertise lay in architecture, while his elder brothers had specialised in law and finance, as had Gemma’s cousins. She in turn had also been expected to align her study to some branch of the family firm. She’d chosen business as her major, for no other reason than she couldn’t draw and had no interest in finance, law or accounting. For the most part, she’d enjoyed it—she found business interesting—but she didn’t love it. Not the way her father loved architecture, or her cousins loved finance. They lived and breathed it, while she just . . . did it, obediently following the path that had been set out for her. She just wished she loved it as much as her father wanted her to.

So, late one afternoon over coffee in the student cafe, Gemma had found herself agreeing to Jazz’s harebrained scheme for a working holiday in the back of beyond.

‘It’ll be just like McLeod’s Daughters, with handsome cowboys on horseback, everywhere we turn,’ Jazz had sighed wistfully.

The only experience Gemma had with horses had been when her parents had supplied pony rides at her fifth birthday party. She still sported the scar on her leg where one of the ponies had bitten her. Gemma was sure she also carried a little bit of emotional trauma around to this very day from that experience. She wouldn’t be getting too close to any cowboys on horseback. Give her the bright city lights any day; she was a born and bred city girl. And now here they were on day one and everything had gone to hell.

‘Well, at least we’re off the road,’ said Jazz. ‘We should be safe here.’

‘We need to call someone. Where’s my phone?’ Gemma opened the driver’s side door and dug through her handbag, then realised that half its contents had spilled over into the passenger-seat footwell.

‘I’m sure things can’t get any worse than they are right now,’ Jazz added comfortingly.

‘I hate when people say that in movies, because you just know things are about to get a hell of a lot worse. Like now.’ Gemma held up her phone grimly. ‘There’s no reception.’

‘Ah.’ Jazz’s face fell.

Gemma swore long and hard inside her head. ‘Okay, then we’ll just wait here till a car comes along,’ she said at last, trying to sound calm.

‘How long since we saw another car, do you think?’ Jazz asked nervously.

Now that she thought about it, she couldn’t quite remember when the last one had been and she saw that Jazz was beginning to pace a little anxiously. ‘Don’t freak out on me, we need to stay calm. Someone will have to come along eventually,’ Gemma said, hoping she didn’t sound as scared as she was beginning to feel.

‘Will they? Will they, Gem?’ Jazz demanded, her tone bordering on frantic. ‘We need to go and look for help.’

Gemma shook her head firmly. ‘We stay with the car. In all the documentaries they always say to stay with the vehicle.’

‘Oh, great idea! They’ll find two skeletons inside the car. Besides, name one time leaving the car wasn’t a good idea? I bet you can’t! Because you always hear the survival stories of people staggering into campsites and saving themselves.’

Gemma folded her arms. ‘Burke and Wills? That one didn’t end too well, did it?’

Jazz set her mouth in a thin line. ‘At least they had camels to eat,’ she said, looking morosely in the direction the kangaroo had departed. ‘Pity that roo wasn’t dead.’

‘Don’t you think you’re being just a tad melodramatic here? We’re not lost in the Simpson Desert.’

‘Melodramatic? Hello? We’re in the middle of nowhere in a car we can’t drive and it’s almost dark.’

‘Well, we have each other and we have shelter. Someone will come past.’

‘I still say we should go looking for a house so we can call a tow truck.’

‘Have you seen any houses?’ Gemma asked, sighing impatiently as she began to lose her patience. On the other side of the road where the kangaroo had disappeared was thick, dense bushland, part of a national park, but behind them beyond the fence line were endless acres of . . . nothingness. A few scattered trees dotted the plains and straggled along the roadside, but they were mostly thin, shaggy saplings, with the occasional large gum.

‘So they don’t build close to the road,’ said Jazz. ‘It doesn’t mean they’re not there. Look, it’ll be dark soon and people will start putting their lights on. That’ll make it easier to find one.’

‘And we’re going to walk across paddocks in the dark with no torch? I don’t think so. What if we tread on a snake? I don’t have a snakebite kit in my handbag. Do you?’ Gemma snapped.

‘Why are you being so negative? I’m trying to get us out of here.’

‘I’m not being negative,’ Gemma said, exasperated.

‘Stop getting angry at me. I’m trying to be practical about this. Going for help is better than standing around doing nothing.’

‘Practical!’ Gemma turned away from her friend to stare out at the empty road before her. ‘Practical would have been us realising we weren’t cut out for this trip before we took it.’

Jazz snorted. ‘Wow, that didn’t take long.’

‘What didn’t take long?’

‘The time it took you to start playing the “this was all your idea” blame game.’

‘This was all your idea!’ Gemma said, throwing up her arms in exasperation. ‘If you recall, I was the one who thought this was completely stupid!’ She said giving up on trying to remain calm.

‘And yet here you are.’ Jazz shrugged.

Gemma gave a frustrated growl. This was the way it had been between them ever since primary school. Jazz would think up ludicrous ideas and Gemma would eventually give in to her pestering and go along with them, only realising once everything went wrong that she should have stuck to her guns. You’d think after all this time she’d have learnt.

Who was she kidding? Jazz Beadman had been her best friend since their first day at school, when Jazz had stood up to a bunch of girls laughing at Gemma’s shiny black school shoes. Their personalities were so different it was sometimes hard even for Gemma to believe they were best friends. Blonde pixie Jazz was outgoing, confident and always the life of the party. Dark-haired Gemma, on the other hand, had always been shy and preferred to hide in the background, more so when they had been younger. Gemma always wondered why Jazz, who resembled a parrot with her brightly coloured clothes, would ever have wanted to befriend Gemma, who had been more like a little sparrow, nondescript and, well, boring. But for all Jazz’s bravado, Gemma knew that deep down she wasn’t as carefree as she liked everyone to believe.

‘Okay,’ Gemma said now. ‘You’re right. I did agree to come along, so it’s me I should be angry with, not you. You don’t know any better,’ she added haughtily.

Jazz chuckled. ‘I told you this trip was exactly what you needed, Northcote. You need to live on the edge, just once in your life. Take some risks.’

‘I hate to point it out to you, Miss Wild Thang, but we could’ve been killed!’

‘But we weren’t. It’s all good. Just a minor setback.’

Only Jazz could write off a near-death experience as a minor setback. Gemma turned on her heel and stared at the long, empty road ahead with a weary sigh. It looked about as optimistic as her future right now.

‘Ha! I told you we’d be okay. Look!’

Gemma turned at her friend’s gleeful outburst, and felt a rush of relief as she saw a set of headlights coming towards them. Jazz began jumping up and down excitedly, waving her arms above her head.

‘Would you stop?’ said Gemma. ‘It’s not like they won’t realise we’re in trouble, what with the car sticking out of a ditch and all!’ Ignoring her, Jazz continued to wave her arms wildly as though trying to signal an aircraft from a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

To Gemma’s relief, the big white four-wheel drive that pulled up looked perfectly respectable. The two girls exchanged a silent ‘Would you look at that’ as they watched a man climb from the driver’s side of the vehicle and walk towards them.

He looked like he’d just stepped out of a RM Williams catalogue with his moleskin pants and blue and white checked button-up shirt. His brown leather boots looked brand new.

A quick glance at Jazz proved her friend was just as impressed by their good Samaritan as she was, and in no way embarrassed to hide her open appreciation.

‘Hi there. I’m Jazz and this is my friend Gemma.’

‘Mackenzie,’ the man introduced himself. ‘Most people call me Mack. Interesting parking technique you have there,’ he said giving the car in the ditch a brief look.

‘We had a bit of an accident,’ Gemma murmured.

‘I kinda figured,’ he said moving towards the car. ‘Everyone okay?’

‘We’re much better now that you’ve come along,’ Jazz all but purred.

‘Where you headed?’ the stranger asked, his gaze lingering on Jazz.

‘Bingorra. Do you know how far away it is?’ Gemma asked.

‘You’re about half an hour out.’

‘We haven’t got any phone reception to call roadside service,’ Gemma felt obliged to point out in case Jazz’s eyelash-batting made him think they were completely useless.

‘Yeah, there’re a few black spots along this section. I can give you a lift into town, if you want?’

Gemma was about to refuse his offer, asking instead if he’d call a tow truck for them, when Jazz jumped in quickly. ‘That would be fantastic.’

‘You could just send someone back for us,’ Gemma said, sending her friend a pointed stare. You don’t just get in a stranger’s car, even if he was drop-dead gorgeous.

‘I really wouldn’t hold my breath on the local towing mob getting out here too soon and I don’t feel right leaving you two out here by yourselves once it got dark.’

‘Ignore her. She’s never really been out of the city before,’ Jazz said, waving a hand in Gemma’s direction. ‘We’d love a lift into town.’

‘I’ll give you a hand to grab your gear.’

Heading back to his four-wheel drive with an armful of luggage, Gemma waited till he was out of earshot before grabbing Jazz’s arm. ‘He could be a serial killer.’

‘Oh, please. You really want to stay out here in the dark?’

‘Well, I’m sure I’d be completely safe with you out here to protect me, since you’re so much more experienced with country life and all,’ Gemma hissed sarcastically.

‘My instincts are telling me we can trust this guy.’

‘I think you’re confusing your instincts with your libido,’ Gemma muttered as she followed behind Jazz after locking the car and carrying the last of their luggage to Mack’s car.

Two

The main street was tidy and wide, as was the fashion with many of the little towns they’d driven through, but there was a decided lack of amenities, with the few shops providing no more than the basics of groceries, petrol and farming supplies. Where did people go to shop? Gemma wondered. It was quaint. There really wasn’t any other word to describe it.

After stopping by the local service station to organise a tow truck to pick up their car, Mack dropped them outside the only accommodation in town. The pub was a lovely-looking old building—the posts and wrought ironwork on the upstairs verandahs gave it a yesteryear kind of charm.

‘It could be worse,’ said Jazz, bouncing to test out the mattress on the single bed. The frame squeaked loudly as if laughing at their predicament.

First thing in the morning they’d have to try to call the car-rental company and sort out another car, but it had been a long day, and after scoffing down a counter meal, they paid for their room and took their luggage upstairs.

‘I’m going for a shower,’ Gemma said, grabbing pyjamas and a towel from her suitcase. She made her way along the hallway and found the ladies’ bathroom. In one of the two shower stalls, she turned on the hot water tap and waited for it to heat up. Goose bumps broke out on her skin as she waited, and waited . . .

‘That was quick,’ said Jazz when Gemma walked back into the room a few minutes later.

‘There’s no hot water.’ She dumped her toiletries bag into her suitcase and pulled back the covers of her own creaky bed.

‘Everything will be better in the morning, Gem,’ said Jazz. ‘You’ll see. Just get some sleep.’

Gemma closed her eyes and let her tired mind drift off, tossing and turning through the night as she dreamed of wild-eyed kangaroos with sharp teeth chasing her through the bush.

The girls spent the majority of the next morning on the phone to their hire-car company.

‘Okay, so it looks like we won’t be able to get a replacement for up to a week,’ Jazz said, disconnecting the call after finally speaking to an operator.

‘How are we going to get out to this place if we don’t have a car? They were expecting us today.’ The two girls swapped frowns as they pondered their next move. ‘Maybe we can just call Brittany’s brother and ask him to come and pick us up until we work out what to do with the car?’ Gemma suggested after a while.

‘We can’t do that,’ Jazz said, shaking her head adamantly.

‘Why not?’

‘Because if we can’t even manage to get ourselves out to the property, we’re going to look pretty silly.’

‘I have a feeling looking pretty silly will be happening quite frequently while we’re out there. You’re sure Brittany told him we have no idea what we’re doing?’

‘Would you stop worrying about everything?’

‘I can’t believe he was fine with that.’ Who knew how things worked out here, but from what Brittany had told Jazz, they were short-staffed and had a lot of work to do. Why would he agree to taking on two untrained girls from the city? Surely he’d prefer someone with experience so he didn’t waste time showing them what to do all day?

‘It’ll be fine. How hard can it be?’

Jazz’s words were anything but comforting. ‘I could call my father,’ Gemma said reluctantly. ‘He’d send someone to come and get us.’

‘We can’t turn around now when we’re this close. Besides, do you really want to call your father and listen to him remind you that he was right and you were wrong?’

Okay, so put like that, maybe it wasn’t the best plan. ‘Well, what would you suggest?’

Jazz’s gaze had fallen on the bartender at the end of the long counter. ‘Wait here. I have an idea.’

‘Jazz!’ Gemma tried to grab her friend’s arm, but she was too late. Great, just what they needed, another of Jazz’s brilliant ideas.

An hour later, Gemma shook her head as they loaded their suitcases into the back of the ancient filthy ute. ‘I can’t believe we actually paid money for this piece of junk.’

Jazz’s big idea had been to sweet-talk the publican into finding someone willing to sell them a car; as luck would have it, his cousin was trying to sell his ute. He’d seen them coming a mile off, Gemma thought bitterly.

‘I thought you said it was white?’ she muttered.

‘That’s what the rego papers say. Oh, look,’ Jazz said with a grin as she picked at the flaky red paint with a nail. ‘It’s white under the rust!’

‘They should have paid us to take it off their hands.’

‘You’d rather call your dad, or tell our new boss we crashed our car and ask him to bail us out?’ asked Jazz. At Gemma’s wince, she nodded knowingly. ‘That’s what I figured. Come on, we need to get out there, we’re already late.’

Under the circumstances, Gemma was sure their boss would understand if they were a little late. What was he going to do, fire them? He was getting free labour in exchange for fulfilling their city-girl dreams of adventure, and it was unlikely they’d lose a job they weren’t even getting paid to do.

In typical Jazz fashion, this entire trip had been arranged in a beauty salon over a manicure. Jazz had been there with Brittany, a girl who shared some classes with her. Gemma knew Brittany didn’t particularly like her: on the few occasions they’d met socially, she’d picked up on an undercurrent of hostility. She wasn’t sure what she’d done to earn it, but from some sarcastic comments she’d overheard, she was pretty sure it had something to do with the fact Gemma came from a wealthier background than her own.

While their nails were being done, Brittany had complained about having to cancel her upcoming holiday to the Gold Coast and return to the family property in order to work over the summer break. Jazz, naturally, had pounced on the opportunity, revealing her long-held secret desire to work in the great outdoors as a jillaroo. By the time their top coats were dry, the two girls had hatched a plan. It was brilliant—Brittany could go to the Gold Coast and take her holiday, and Jazz would get to live out her fantasy of living and working on the land. To sweeten the deal, she had volunteered to bring Gemma along to help out—two workers for the price of one! And Jazz had assured Brittany that as long as food and board were included they didn’t even need to be paid. In fact, Jazz told Gemma, they would be the ones getting the bargain: overseas tourists paid a lot of money to stay on a working station and toil alongside real jack- and jillaroos.

It took Jazz quite a while to talk Gemma round, considering she’d never had the slightest desire to leave the comforts of the city to work outside in the dirt and dust and whatever else they had out there. But knowing that Jazz was going with or without her, she had felt a certain sense of obligation to accompany her on this random escapade. How could she send her best friend out alone to the back of beyond? Who knew what kind of trouble Jazz would get herself into? Besides, maybe doing something completely out of character like this would help take her mind off her job, and the path that would take her down from which there would be no deviating.

‘I miss air-conditioning,’ Gemma sighed as she rolled up the window before the large road train rumbled past, billowing dust. The ute was like a furnace, and winding down the windows was the only way to stay cool.

So much for an early start and impressing their new boss with their punctuality. By the time they finished talking with the rental company and had dealt with the necessary paperwork for the dilapidated ute, it was mid-afternoon when they finally left Bingorra and headed out of town.

The driveway to the property was long and dusty. It was so long that after driving for five kilometres with no sign of a house, the girls began to worry they’d missed a turn somewhere.

‘Are you sure this is the right place?’ Gemma asked.

‘The sign out the front said Dunoon,’ Jazz said, tapping her finger on the steering wheel in time with the country song on the radio.

‘Do you think the house is far enough away from the road?’ Gemma asked sarcastically.

‘Oh look! There it is,’ cried Jazz.

Sure enough, the track crested a slight rise and up ahead they saw a low-set house with a wide wraparound verandah. The sloping tin roof seemed huge as it reflected the bright sunlight. The white timber weatherboards could have done with a new coat of paint, the fenced yard looked a bit untidy and no clothes hung on the old Hills hoist, but there was something welcoming about the homestead. Off to one side was a series of large silver sheds.

In the paddocks beside the driveway, brown and white cattle lazily pulled at grass; a few lifted their heads as the old ute rattled past. Gemma let her gaze drift across the wide brown land that stretched out towards a mountain range in the distance. The open space seemed strange to a girl who had only ever lived in the city. There was so much . . . nothing. A shiver ran through her at the thought of wandering around out there. Why had she agreed to this? she asked herself again.

‘Well, it’s not exactly how I was picturing it,’ Jazz said, looking doubtfully at the farmhouse. ‘The way Brittany talked about it, I was picturing something . . . fancier. But we’re really doing this! We’re on a real working property!’

They pulled up outside the house, but the sound of dogs barking made them wait inside the ute for a moment. Picturing giant Dobermans with bared teeth, Gemma hoped they weren’t about to become lunch for some hungry guard dogs. But when there was no sign of the dogs, the girls opened the doors and climbed out.

‘I don’t think anyone’s here,’ Gemma said nervously as they looked around.

‘Let’s go and check the sheds.’ Jazz was already crossing the dusty ground between the house and the big silver structures.

Gemma followed her inside the first one and stared around the cavernous space with its compacted dirt floor. It was obviously used to house some kind of large machinery.

‘You’d think if they were expecting us today someone would be here,’ she mused with a frown. She was hot and sweaty and more than a little tired, and could have done with a cup of coffee.

‘Did you hear that?’ Jazz asked, tilting her head to one side.

Listening for a few moments, Gemma heard a muffled mewing sound coming from somewhere in the shed, and joined Jazz in the search. It took them a while to locate the source of the pitiful meows. Eventually, Jazz climbed up onto a pile of hay stacked along the far wall of the shed and looked down into the small space behind it.

‘Oh, the poor thing,’ she called back to Gemma. ‘It’s a cat. I think it’s fallen down and can’t get back out.’ She reached down behind the hay to try to grab it. ‘I can’t reach.’

‘Are you sure it’s stuck?’ asked Gemma. ‘I mean, cats can climb. Maybe if we leave it alone it’ll come out by itself.’ She’d never been overly fond of animals in general, but cats in particular always seemed so damn superior.

‘It’s definitely stuck. We can’t just leave it there. I know what—come up here and I’ll hold your feet and lower you down so you can grab it.’

‘Are you insane?’ cried Gemma. ‘I’m not going down there. You won’t be able to hold me—you’ll drop me on my head.’

‘I was on the damn rowing team; I have upper-body strength that’d make a footy player jealous. Come on! It’s starting to cry louder. We have to get it out!’

Gemma swatted at her friend’s hands. ‘Don’t push me!’ She sighed as she climbed up onto the hay bales next to Jazz. ‘I cannot believe I’m doing this. You better not drop me, Beadman.’

‘I won’t drop you, you big sook. Ready?’

No, she wasn’t ready! Gemma just knew this was going to end badly for her. Why could she never seem to say no to Jazz? As she gingerly leaned down into the space, she spotted the bundle of ginger fur wedged in between the wall and the bales, and had to admit it did look rather stuck. The cat stared up at her furiously as it continued to utter frantic cries. Reaching down as far as she could, Gemma could only just touch the cat’s fur with her fingertips. Cautiously she eased her torso lower behind the bales, the hay poking and scratching her as she went. For some reason she’d always assumed hay would be soft like grass, not this coarse, nasty-smelling stuff that made her itch.

Jazz stood on the lower bale, her arms locked tightly around Gemma’s hips, helping to ease her forward while Gemma tried to grab hold of the animal. It was bigger than she’d first thought. ‘Come here, you stupid cat!’

‘Don’t yell, you’ll frighten it,’ Jazz scolded.

‘It keeps squirming and it’s only getting more stuck. I can’t reach it.’

‘Here, lean down closer,’ Jazz said, and instantly dropped Gemma lower, angling her further into the gap behind the hay bales.

Caught unaware, Gemma’s panicked scream drowned out the cat’s high-pitched meow, and the string of swearwords she produced concealed the sound of footsteps behind the two cat rescuers.

There was a deep clearing of a throat, Gemma froze. At the same time, she felt Jazz’s fingers tighten convulsively before losing their grip and plunging her headfirst down the hole.

With her legs in the air and her hands trapped in front of her, Gemma was effectively stuck. She squeezed her eyes shut in frustration and humiliation. Jazz swore, then quickly grabbed hold of Gemma’s thighs and pulled her backwards out of the small space. As she felt herself being dragged upwards, the hay scratching her exposed skin and snagging her hair, Gemma almost wished she could have stayed down there. She did not want to face whoever had just walked into the shed.

Three

‘Can I help you?’ The voice was deep, and relatively calm, considering that whoever had just walked in had been greeted by the sight of two women looking more than a little ridiculous—including one with her backside up in the air.

At the last minute Gemma had somehow managed to grab a fistful of fur, bringing the struggling, protesting cat with her. Once out of its prison, in a flash of ginger fur the cat was gone. Gemma found her footing and wiggled out of Jazz’s grip, while her friend gave a cheerful hello as though nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.

Gemma took a minute to dust off her clothing and pick out some of the hay. She could imagine the sight she must look with her ponytail scraped backwards through a hay bale and her face streaked with dust. Not to mention the scratch marks she’d earned while face-planting the dirt next to a terrified cat.

‘I’m Jasmine, but call me Jazz. And this is Gemma.’

Reluctantly, Gemma lifted her gaze to meet a pair of warm—if rather perplexed—brown eyes. ‘Okay,’ the man said slowly. ‘And you’d be in my shed because . . . ?’

‘Rescuing that—’ Gemma waved in the general direction the cat from hell had run off in—‘stupid cat.’ She rubbed the scratch marks irritably.

‘I think I must be missing something. What are you doing here?’

As the puzzled expression deepened on the stranger’s face, Gemma forgot the cat fiasco and a new concern began to flutter to life. Something was very wrong here.

‘We’re your new farmhands.’ Jazz smiled up at him.

‘Farmhands,’ he repeated flatly.

‘You were expecting us, weren’t you?’ she asked.

‘No, I wasn’t. I didn’t hire any farmhands. You must have the wrong place.’

‘Are you Nash Whittaker?’ Jazz asked, unfazed by his fierce frown.

‘Yes, but I didn’t hire any farmhands,’ he repeated.

‘Brittany organised for us to come out and lend a hand.’

‘My sister did this? Where is she?’

‘My guess would be sitting in a spa somewhere on the Gold Coast. We said we’d come out here instead and use the experience as a working holiday,’ Jazz prattled on, oblivious to the man’s growing horror.

‘Wait a minute,’ Gemma cut in. ‘Are you telling us you didn’t know anything about this?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m telling you,’ Nash said grimly. ‘My sister was supposed to be arriving today to pull her share of the weight around here for a change.’

‘Did you know she hadn’t cleared this with anyone?’ demanded Gemma, turning on her friend.

‘Of course not!’ Jazz replied, then gave a small wince.

Gemma narrowed her eyes.

‘Alright, I didn’t exactly ask if she’d checked. But how was I supposed to know she had to? I was under the impression you guys were joint owners of this place,’ Jazz said, turning back to the tall, annoyed-looking man before them.

‘Oh yeah, we’re joint owners when it suits her,’ he snapped. ‘Look, it doesn’t matter. You two can’t stay here. I don’t have time to babysit a pair of city girls all day.’

Jazz and Gemma exchanged glances. Jazz looked dismayed, but Gemma felt a flash of relief, part of her hoping she wouldn’t have to do this after all.

‘You can’t do that!’ said Jazz, rallying. ‘We’re not inexperienced, and you won’t have to babysit us. Besides, I don’t think you have much choice, do you? From the way Brittany spoke, you need a couple of extra sets of hands but you can’t afford to hire any more staff. So, let’s stop talking and get stuck into it.’

‘You have experience with farm work?’ he asked sceptically.

‘Of course we do!’ said Jazz. ‘Do you think we’d drive all the way out here if we didn’t have experience?’

Gemma concentrated on avoiding both pairs of eyes. Part of her was horrified that Jazz was telling such blatant lies to a complete stranger, while another part was too busy rolling around on the floor laughing hysterically at the thought of the two of them ever having worked on anything remotely farm-like in their lives. She couldn’t help but be impressed by Jazz’s bravado though—she sounded so convincing that for a moment she almost had Gemma believing it too.

She could see Nash trying to work out if Jazz was telling the truth; finally he seemed to give up, turning to walk away. ‘I’ll deal with this after I’ve tracked down my sister,’ he said over his shoulder, his tone ominous.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Gemma grabbed Jazz’s arm. ‘Are you crazy?’ she hissed. ‘What will you do if he actually lets us stay? He’ll be furious when he finds out we don’t have a clue what we’re doing.’

‘Would you relax? We’re two intelligent women. Surely between us we can figure out anything he wants us to do.’

‘Oh, really? What, we’re just going to google how to do it, are we?’

‘Why not? Actually, what a brilliant idea. That’s exactly what we’re going to do! See, we’ve already figured this out!’

Gemma shook her head, defeated. ‘We’re doomed.’

‘Nope. We’ve got this.’ Grinning, Jazz turned to see that the cat had slunk back around the corner and was now stalking something in the corner of the shed. ‘How’s it feel to save an animal’s life?’ she asked brightly.

‘It stings, actually. Quite a lot, in fact,’ Gemma muttered, glowering at the cat.

‘He needs a name.’

‘It reminds me of that mean cat from Footrot Flats. I think I’ll call him Horse.’

‘That’s not a cute name,’ Jazz objected.

‘That’s not a cute cat. Cute cats rub against your leg and purr. They don’t tear you apart like a hillbilly with a chainsaw from some crazed slasher movie.’ Gemma held up her arm to show Jazz the long red scratches she’d earned from her good deed for the day.

‘He didn’t mean it. He was just frightened. Weren’t you, kitty?’ Jazz crooned, moving closer to the cat, who swivelled his head in the girls’ direction mid-stalk.

Gemma bit back a smile as the animal hissed and Jazz withdrew her hand in alarm. ‘Oh yeah, Jazz, he’s a real cutie.’

‘Well, you frightened him, what did you expect?’

Gemma rolled her eyes as her friend walked past her towards the door.

‘Come on,’ Jazz said. ‘Let’s get the stuff from the car.’

With one last wary glance over her shoulder at the angry feline, Gemma followed her friend from the shed.

Nash uttered a long string of expletives beneath his breath as he stormed into the house. Of all the stupid, immature things his sister had done lately, this took the bloody cake. Gone to the Gold Coast for a break? A break? Wouldn’t that be nice. He couldn’t even think of the last time he took a break. When you were solely responsible for a failing farm in the middle of a drought, holidays were unthinkable.

Grabbing his mobile, he hit his sister’s number and listened to the phone ring a few times before her chirpy voice informed him she was unable to take his call but to leave a message. He did as instructed, and was pretty damn sure his message would leave her in no doubt of his feelings about her little surprise. Tossing the phone onto the bench, he bowed his head and took a deep breath.

Damn it, he needed an extra set of hands around the place, and even if he had been able to afford to hire someone, no one local was available. It was a busy time of the season and everyone was in the same position. Experienced labour was hard to find in a pinch.

Which brought him back to the two young women waiting outside to hear his decision. His mind instantly conjured up the memory of a shapely backside poking up from the stack of hay bales, and he gave a frustrated groan. He didn’t have time for this. He didn’t care how hot that brunette’s body was, or how soft her moss-green eyes were. His life was falling down around him and he needed to focus on the problems at hand.

Gemma sat in the front seat of the ute and shut her eyes, listening to the gentle drone of insects and the sound of cattle calling in the distance. It was so peaceful. There was no traffic noise, no hustle and bustle, just a whole lot of quiet. Until Jazz started talking again, that was.

‘Let me handle this, Gemma,’ she said. ‘I can convince him we’re up for it. Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.’

‘Jazz, it’s not too late to turn around and go home,’ Gemma said.

‘Go home?’ Jazz stared at her. ‘You know how long I’ve wanted to do something like this—we’ve wanted to,’ she amended. ‘It was your dream too, remember?’

‘Jazz, that was when we were, like, eleven and we’d just watched The Thorn Birds mini-series. We both had a crush on Bryan Brown and wanted to marry good-looking sheep shearers.’

‘It could happen!’

‘I don’t want to marry a shearer. I don’t even like sheep! Look, let’s just explore the area for a few days and then go back to the city. You know, have a real holiday, one where you don’t have to actually work?’

Jazz shook her head. ‘That defeats the whole working-holiday thing.’

Gemma gritted her teeth. Why did Jazz have to be so stubborn?

‘Please give it a chance, Gem. This is important to me. It’s something I truly want to do. I want to make some outrageous memories while I’m young, and I want my best friend to be in them.’ Jazz looked at Gemma pleadingly.

Damn it. Gemma had never been able to say no to Jazz when she got that look in her eyes. ‘Fine. We’ll stay if Brittany’s brother says it’s okay . . . But brace yourself for disappointment, he was really angry.’

A door squeaked open then closed with a bang as Nash strode out onto the verandah and down the steps towards them, his expression formidable. ‘It seems I can’t locate my sister at the moment, so for now,’ he paused for emphasis, looking back and forth between them, ‘you can stay here. But the minute I get hold of Brittany and sort out this mess you’ll have to go. I don’t have time for this.’

Gemma felt sorry for the poor guy. In his shoes, she probably wouldn’t be too happy either, but she was grateful they wouldn’t have to turn around immediately and go home. She just needed one night in a real bed before they got back into the rust bucket and headed home to the city.

‘May as well grab your stuff and I’ll show you where the rooms are before I go back out,’ Nash said.

The girls retrieved their bags from the back of the ute. Gemma caught Nash’s double take as he spotted her trendy suitcases, complete with wheels and pull-along handles. Maybe she should have listened to Jazz’s advice and bought an ugly green duffle bag like hers from the camping supply store, but she loved her luggage, it had been a twenty-first birthday present from her parents. Although she hated to admit it, it did seem out of place here.

‘Here, let me help.’ Nash reached across to take the girls’ bags, lifting them with ease and leaving Gemma and Jazz to follow with the rest.