“You don’t know whether or not this James person is flaky,” Charlie shot back. “His resume seemed solid. He’s done a bunch of work for the local vineyards in southern California.”
“So send him down the road to the winery,” I said, stabbing my knife into my eggs and cutting into them. “We run sheep, cattle, and grow crops, not bloody grapes.”
“So that’s the name of this guy?” Billy asked, craning his neck to take a look at the printout. “James… Mackenzie?” He elbowed Bronson. “Another Scotsman! Scotty will be stoked.”
Jock McDonald, AKA Scotty, had been working for us for years.
“Scotty is a pisshead,” I said, shooting the two of them a dark look. “And the last thing we need is all of our workers stopping for a beer midday.”
“Nothing wrong with a beer every now and then…” Billy muttered.
Except there was. We didn’t have time to sit around drinking beer. I was up at 5 AM this morning, trying to get a head start on the jobs for the day, but everywhere I went I saw more things that needed doing. It was never fucking ending.
“No beers,” I said, seeing a familiar stubborn set in my brothers’ expressions. “No farm stays and definitely no influencers.”
“This is a family farm.” When Billy’s smile faded, you knew you were in trouble. “Our farm, so you don’t get to?—”
A muffled roar had us all staring at the back door.
“Sounds like Wally’s feeling his oats today,” Bronson said, getting to his feet. The sound of his knife scraping the remains of his breakfast into the compost bucket set my teeth on edge. “Any of the cows due to come in season?”
Wally was our prize bull and while he was fairly placid, he was still a bull. The beast could get really stroppy if he caught the scent of a cow coming into heat. Trouble was, I didn’t think any of our girls were due for some time.
“I’m gonna take a look,” I said, pushing my chair back and jumping to my feet.
“Sit down.” Charlie flapped a hand at me, then turned to our brothers. “Tweedledum and Tweedledumber can go.”
“Thanks, Char—” Bronson said.
“It’s fine.” I grabbed the coffee cup, taking it with me as I made for the door. “I’ve got it.”
And I always had.
Mum and Dad had taken over the farm when I was born, planning to live their lives here, just like my grandparents had, but fate had other plans. Mum got sick and died when I was in my early twenties and Dad? Apparently seeing your wife get progressively sicker was all it took to spark a midlife crisis. He left me the farm, my mum and my siblings to look after while he took off for Queensland, where he went through a stringof girlfriends, each one worse than the last. When Mum was unable to care for herself anymore, when my siblings were just kids, someone had to step up and ensure we survived, and that was me.
“Top paddock,” I barked at the twins as I made for the ute. Sparky, my Border Collie, ran towards the truck, bouncing up and into the cab as soon as I opened the door. “What’s up, Spark?” I asked him as I turned the engine over. “What’s going on, fella?”
His tail wagged furiously in response and he barked at the windshield. Obviously something had happened and the dog was itching to investigate. I set off down the bumpy dirt track that led away from the main house, heading towards one of the paddocks near the road.
Only to discover this.
“What the hell…?”
Spark was out of the ute and racing towards a car that was left parked in the middle of the road. The door was open and his nose snuffled at a dark brown spot on the bitumen. Blood, I quickly realised. Spark was off, bounding through the weeds and long grass beside the paddock.
But he wasn’t the only one.
“Come here!” a muffled female voice said. “Come… Oh.”
Oh? That wasn’t good. I had my rifle out of the ute in seconds and made a beeline for the fence. The barrier was sound here, the wire taut as I threw myself over it, dropping down into the paddock. Spark was already there, barking furiously at Wally as the bull snorted, but the dog wasn’t his focus. Instead, the big Hereford bull pawed at the ground, those beady little eyes focussed on her.
“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”
She spun around then, her eyes going wide as she stared up at me. Who turns their back on a stroppy bull? Stupid bloodyinfluencer types did. Wally was well and truly pissed now. His sacred field was full of people, dogs and that was one too many entities.
Get her out of here, my instincts screamed. Get her out and…
When he dropped his head, I moved, sweeping this stranger up into my arms. Right when I was supposed to be moving my arse to safety, I felt this. How perfect, how soft she felt, how right. The sound of Wally’s roar had me focussing back on what was important: running. Spark’s bark got louder and louder, and he lunged for the bull, trying to herd him back, but Wally wasn’t having it. Up and over the fence I went, not able to take a full breath until we were all on the other side.
