My voice trailed away as she approached the hot plates, poking the different frypans with a spatula.
“You did this for me?”
The fact she sounded so shocked had me wanting to kick this Alex’s butt all over again.
“I believe the order was breakfast in bed, not having to feed the cattle early in the morning, and…” For a moment I racked my brains, then it came to me. “Shovelling kangaroo poo so you can cuddle more baby animals.”
“But I wasn’t serious. Troy…” She turned around to face me. “That was just a joke.”
“Charlie always says I take things way too literally.” Ducking behind her, I flipped the pancakes just in time, the faces still golden brown. “You told me what you needed for me to make amends and so…” I slid some eggs, bacon and other things onto her plate. “Off to bed with you.”
“No.” The plate was removed from my grip and held close. “Nope. I’m here to work.” As if in counterpoint, she let out a jaw-cracking yawn. “And if that means feeding cows at the ass crack of dawn, that’s what I’ll do.” Collapsing down onto a chair, she consulted with her plate. “After a nice big breakfast.” A glance my way and I saw the twinkle was back in her eyes. “You made me pancakes?”
I nodded, then put the golden syrup on the table beside her.
“We don’t have maple syrup, but we do have golden syrup.”
“What the hell is…?”
As she opened the squeeze bottle, I turned back to the hot plates. The bacon was a little crispier than I liked it, the sausages a bit on the crunchy side, but as I served myself, I found I didn’t care. The way she hummed over her food, picking up a knife and fork and then digging in, was what held my attention. As I sat down opposite her, I caught her running commentary.
“Pancakes are good,” she declared, “but I don’t know what that stuff is, but it’s no maple syrup. You need the real stuff for pancakes.”
“Costs almost as much as gold in Australia,” I informed her, cutting into my fried egg, the yolk oozing onto the plate. Her eyes widened, and I ended up shaking my head. “But I’ll get Charlie to put it on the list.”
“You don’t have to.” Silence reigned for a moment as we both chewed our food, but then Mackenzie swallowed. “Like this is more than I was expecting.”
But some part of me wanted her to grow accustomed to getting what she wanted, and that wasn’t a helpful impulse.She’s only here for six months, I told myself.Mackenzie works for you. The power dynamic, the fact that some bastards used farm stays as an opportunity to abuse female workers, sat heavily on me, but then, she smiled.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone try to make amends like this before.” Her eyes narrowed. “What time did you get up to start cooking?”
“Three,” I groaned, taking another long sip of coffee.
“Three?” she spluttered. “Oh my god, you’re gonna be foul today, right? Maybe I don’t want to help out.”
“Put three times the usual amount of coffee in my cup,” I said, holding up the tall mug. “Spoon is damn near standing up in the thing.” She stared fixedly at the cup. “I wanted to make sure I wasn’t so grumpy this morning.”
Her lips twitched and that had mine moving. Frowning couldn’t stop the smile from coming. I shook my head, turning back to my food, because otherwise I’d just sit there and stare the whole morning at that smile of hers.
“Eat your breakfast,” I growled, “because if you’re coming?—”
“I’m coming.”
So an hour later, that’s how we came to be idling through the paddock. Mackenzie was focussed on tossing the feed out for the cattle and I… I was way too focussed on her. Should’ve had my eyes on the field before me, because if I did, I’d have seen the big rock and made sure to miss it. Instead, the ute lurched to one side, forcing me to jerk my eyes away from the rear vision mirror, but when I did, Mackenzie’s yelp cut through the morning quiet.
“Shit…!”
I cut the engine, but not fast enough, because while she was doing a very good job of staying in the tray, that didn’t include being able to keep her feet when the whole car was rocking from side to side as it climbed over the rock. Her arms flailing, a thin scream, and then she was going flying over the edge and I was right there with her. Didn’t even remember opening the door. Just throwing myself through the air, my eyes entirely trained on her until my arms snapped around her ribcage.
And we both landed with a splat on something hot, sticky, and very smelly.
“Are you alright?” My hands were everywhere at once, not waiting for an answer before trying to reassure myself. “Mackenzie!”
“Ugh…” Her groan had me trying to roll upwards to see what was the matter, but she held out her shaking hands. “Is that… cow shit?”
I couldn’t hold back the bark of laughter that was more relief than joy. With a shake of my head, I found myself grinning.
“Well, shit happens…” The cattle started to moo as they edged closer, unable to work out what the hell this was. “Especially if you’re in a field full of cows.”
