Jemma came closer, but didn’t pat the animal.
He twisted to face her, expecting her to be annoyed, dishing out some sarcastic remark about him being adept at manhandling sheep, but she laughed, pulling the tie fromher bedraggled ponytail and pushing the hair back from her face. Her forehead glistened with a light sheen and a bead of sweat trembled in the hollow at the base of her neck. He dragged his gaze away.
Unattainable. That was the attraction. He had to remember that.
19
Jemma
‘That’s so unfair,’ Jemma said. ‘How come you can just walk up and grab it, instead of running around like a headless chook?’
‘Guess I’m just irresistible,’ Hamish grunted, lifting the sheep by its wool.
‘You can’t do that!’
‘I can’t?’ he said, the sheep hanging docile in his grip. ‘Well, unless you see a gate … ?’
She gestured at the kilometres of dilapidated fence line. ‘I already told you there are no gates along here. Otherwise I would have opened it and chased the sheep in.’
He chuckled. ‘Like that was an option.’
She slammed her arms across her chest. Let him bloody stand there holding thirty kilos of lamb chops for a while, see how he liked it.
He didn’t seem to notice the weight, just kept his gaze on her.
She huffed. ‘I don’t know what you expect me to do. There’s no gate. And holding the sheep like that is cruel.’
‘I’m just waiting for your permission to toss her into the paddock,’ he said. ‘Given that you seem to be in charge.’
‘You can’t get her over that.’ Though sagging, the fence was still more than a metre high and the sheep wasn’t small.
‘Hup.’ Hamish swung the animal over the wires, lowering it gently until it found its footing. Then he clapped his hands. ‘Har! Off with you. Go on, back to your mama.’ The sheep bolted across the paddock in the direction of the distant flock.
Hamish grinned at Jemma. ‘Sorry, I heard thatcan’tas a challenge to commit to action.’
‘Hilarious.’ It was intriguing that Hamish considered their previous interactions memorable enough to refer back to.
Although what did it mean that she also recalled them?
‘You realise you’re about ten clicks from your dad’s place?’ he said. ‘That means you’ll be doing at least twenty. On top of chasing the sheep.’
She gestured at the road. ‘I drove out about halfway, looking for some new scenery.’ She’d been enjoying exploring the seemingly aimless, twisting dirt roads, where the edges were studded with tall spears of pink and burgundy daisies that had dried over the long, hot summer. She’d filled Sam and Dad’s cottage with bouquets of the papery blooms, shrugging off Sam’s laughing comment that they were weeds. In the city, she’d never bothered looking where she was going, never thought to pick a flower or stop to watch a bird, she’d simply focused on getting the grid-pattern run done while her mind roamed elsewhere. Here, though, she’d started to look up.
Hamish’s gaze slid over her. ‘Give you a lift back to your car?’ His dog leaned from the back of the ute, giving an excited yip as he strode toward it.
She followed, running her hands over her hair and wiping her brow with her forearm. It might only be Hamish, but she had standards.
He undid the bungee strap securing a retro blue Styrofoam cooler flask on the tray. She shook her head as he flipped the lid and offered it to her. He took a swallow, then cupped his hand and tipped some water in, letting the dog lap from it.
She leaned her hip against the ute. ‘Thanks to the ridiculous videos of “cute” animals my co-worker sends, my feed is now full of influencers going bush and rescuing lambs on the roadside. How is it that I’m the only person who can’t simply leap out of a vehicle and scoop them up?’
‘You just need to be calm and firm—though I reckon the sheep they’re nabbing are probably a good bit younger than that one, so don’t have the brains to run.’ Hamish recapped the flask. ‘Actually, these supposed “rescues” are becoming a bit of an issue: young lambs can’t walk far enough for the ewe to get some decent graze, so she feeds them up, then parks them for a nap while she browses further afield. They wake up and wander a little, yelling for her, then by the time Mum comes back, she finds some do-gooder has stolen her baby.’ He was testing to see if she was a soft touch.
‘Guess she was always going to lose the lamb to the meatworks anyway, though. In fact, we probably haven’t “saved” that one.’
‘Depends.’ Hamish lifted his chin to the paddock. ‘This guy is a hobby farmer, so it’s unlikely his sheep would be headed to the slaughterhouse. And plenty of the farms out here are running merino. Wool sheep,’ he clarified, as he caught her blank expression. ‘So they’re more likely to be kept than sold, depending on the market. Whatever, picking up the lambs is basically theft.’ He said the last in a challenging tone, as though he expected she’d argue about it.
‘At the very least it’s misappropriation or, I guess, a case of small-scale stock rustling.’
