“See, people love my stories,” he said to Nance.
“Now he’ll never shut up. Here, I’ll give you my number, just in case,” she said, typing her details into my phone when I handed it over. “Now, you’ve got an international SIM card, right? And you know you’ll be driving on the other side of the road? Why your employer couldn’t come to pick you up, I don’t know.”
“Stop fussing, woman,” Blue growled with a smile. “If you run into any dramas, just give us a hoy, love.”
A hoy…? What the hell was a hoy? I got to ponder that as we went downstairs to the baggage claim. Retrieving our bags, we said our goodbyes and then I caught a taxi to the hostel. The room was small, super basic, but it was cheap and the bed was comfortable. After a shower, I laid down on the mattress, feeling my eyes growing heavy, despite the fact it was the middle of the day.Jet lag…I thought as my eyelids fell closed.Need to keep…
I didn’t manage to stay awake. Having little sleep on the plane had me passing out for hours and waking up really early the next morning. Packing my stuff up, I got changed into clothes that would’ve been fine working on the vineyards. I checked out of the hostel, walking over to the terminal to find the rental car place. Grabbing the keys from the girl behind thedesk, I located my car and then loaded it up with all my bags, before I slid into the driver’s seat.
That’s when I was forced to stop for a moment.
“This is weird…” I muttered, gripping the wheel tight. “It’s weird.” I looked around me, trying to get used to driving on the right-hand side, not the left. “Why can’t Australians drive on the right side of the road?”
But they didn’t, so I’d need to adjust. Punching in the coordinates into the GPS, the measured tones coming through the speakers told me to pull out and onto the main road that led out of the airport, and while I was probably driving way too slowly, my confidence built the further away from the city I got. Navigating the freeway had my teeth clenching tight, but as soon as we got free of the city, I was able to take a full breath. Industrial buildings gave way to rolling green hills and… eucalyptus trees.
Back at home they werean invasive pain in the ass, but here? Just like me, they were exactly where they were supposed to be. Grinning to myself, I drove on. Closer and closer to Colac and then through it where town streets were replaced by green paddocks. Seeing cows and sheep, so many sheep, grazing, was kind of jarring. Like obviously I knew that people farmed Down Under, but still. The Australia in my head was different to the reality. I could’ve been at home right now, driving through farmland on my way to the beach?—
“Are those parrots?”
I took my foot off the accelerator as I craned my neck, peering through the windshield. Barely idling forward, I followed the flash of bright colours, smiling, really smiling for the first time in months. There were a pair of them, with vibrant red, yellow, and blue feathers, I watched them fly off into the nearby trees.
When I should’ve been watching the road.
It was a narrow back road, so I assumed I was safe. There were no other cars, but I wasn’t alone. Brown fur, little eyes staring up at me in alarm as I was forced to slam my foot on the brakes, accompanied by a sickening thud.
“No…” I said, turning the engine off and throwing myself out of the car. “No, no, no…”
All my life I wanted to see Australian animals in the wild, but seeing something that looked like a groundhog, but six times the size, lying motionless on the asphalt was not part of my dream at all.
Chapter 2
Troy
“Top paddock fence needs looking at,” I said as I walked into the kitchen. My brothers, Billy and Bronson, looked up from their plates, but it was my sister, Charlie, who turned around and thrust a plate into my hands.
“And a good morning to you too, brother,” she said. “Your usual. Toast?—”
“Scrambled eggs,” Billy said with a grin. “With cream, not milk, and some salt and pepper.”
“Nothing wrong with scrambled eggs.” I took a seat at the head of the table, then scowled at these two idiots. “The fence is another matter. Some of the posts are coming up because there is too much tension in the fencing wire, which I told you?—”
“You said there was too much slack in the wire,” Bronson said.
“Then the fenceposts weren’t dug in deep enough,” I snapped. “The grass is getting thin in the nearby field and the sheep were supposed to be moved to the top paddock today, so?—”
“We’ll get right on it.” Billy shot me that shit-eating grin he always wore. I swear when he was born, he’d looked at me the same way when Mum put the baby in my arms. “After breakfast.”
“You—”
“The boys can get to it after they’ve eaten.” Charlie set a cup of coffee beside my plate and I took a sip. Burning hot, black, it was a perfect fit for my mood. “Maybe they can get the farm stay worker to help them out.”
My head whipped around to stare at her.
“What farm stay worker?” My hand gripped the coffee cup way too tightly. “Charlie, we talked about this. I said I didn’t want any more of them after the last two flaked on us.”
“We need help,” she said, sitting down in a chair beside me.
“Not from unreliable tourists too busy posing for photos in canola fields to get any work done,” I growled.
