Chapter 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 that can’t as 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.’
‘Very small scale,’ he agreed with a wry grin.
‘To be fair, if someone has the decency to check at the farmhouse before nicking off with a lamb, ninety-nine per cent of the time we’re going to be glad to be shot of it—orphans are too costly to raise, with a poor chance of success.
The issue is losing the weaners, the older lambs.
When you’re talking over a hundred dollars a head at the market, the damage adds up quickly.
’ He tied the drink bottle back onto the ute and patted the dog.
‘A couple of years back they had more than two million dollars’ worth of sheep nicked over the border. ’
‘I had no idea it was such a widespread issue. Or so costly.’ Which meant there’d be a decent return on any legal action, she thought with renewed interest. Hamish was proving to be more than the simple country guy she’d originally pegged him as.
‘Guess that’s the cross we have to bear in return for getting to make a living by wandering paddocks,’ he said with a grin.
While his tendency to shoot off on a tangent didn’t equate to the mental gymnastics required from her in court, he’d verbally bested her on several occasions now. And somehow the constant challenge of their interactions was … exhilarating.
‘Jump in.’ He pointed to the passenger side of the vehicle.
He slid behind the wheel, then reached across the cab to push a sketchpad and a couple of pencils from her seat as she hovered in the doorway.
‘Sorry, there’s a bit of charcoal on your seat,’ he said, giving the fabric a good thump.
‘I probably should swap to using graphite.’
Any telltale black dust was lost in the general grime of the mottled fabric and the faint cloud that rose from his attack. ‘Family heirloom?’ She nodded at the cracked dashboard as she sank into the flattened springs of the seat.
‘Not yet. Unless you’re offering to help out with the necessaries for that?’ He waited a beat, then continued smoothly, ‘Picked it up off a mate who needed some cash in a hurry.’
‘Altruism at its finest, I’m sure.’ The emphysemic old ute would have no value, so the fact that he’d paid anything made no sense.
‘Can always use a good workhorse. Speaking of work …’ He shot a glance at her, then refocused on the dirt road. He was only steering with the fingertips of one hand, his elbow hanging out of the window. ‘Did you sort out someone to go to this thing on Saturday with you?’
Her mouth tightened. ‘The necessity is all in Pierce’s head.’
‘And in Sam’s, apparently.’
‘Sam has her own reasons for being overly concerned.’
‘I’m aware,’ Hamish said. ‘And I’d say her reasons are valid.’
‘My situation is quite different.’ Jemma was no small-town girl tolerating years of abuse from her husband.
‘I’ve filed a report with the authorities, so the stalker—if you can even call them that—will no doubt be running scared by now.
’ Though Nonna had complained that the only uniformed officer she’d seen had come in for a takeaway tiramisu during the lunchtime service.
‘Regardless, it doesn’t cost anything to be careful,’ Hamish insisted. ‘Even if only to reassure your dad. Do you have a friend you can drag along?’
As an adult, she made friends easily, but not particularly well.
Other than Tien, none of them seemed to stick—and that suited her perfectly.
She was no longer an insecure child who conflated ability with popularity and longed for a mother who fitted the ‘normal’ mould.
Now she was too invested in her career to make time for cultivating unwanted relationships.
That was why Kain, with his total lack of expectations, had worked so well for so long.
‘I’d be up for at least half-a-dozen drinks, plus dinner,’ she said, rather than answer his question.
‘So there goes your theory on it not costing anything.’
‘Half-a-dozen? Your crowd are big drinkers.’
‘Goes with the job.’ No one outside the profession understood the dual pressures of needing a stress release and networking while being time-poor.
‘I have physio in the city on Saturday, so, if you need company … ?’ He lifted his left hand fractionally from the wheel and she recalled that it was the arm with the scar from his vehicle accident a year or so ago.
Ongoing physio over such a period of time could mean a potentially decent claim if he chose to sue the other party, so she made a mental note to return to the subject later.
If she picked up some lucrative work for GB&A, it’d help defuse any issues over her absence from the office.
‘You’re volunteering to be my handbag?’ she crowed.
Hamish rested his gaze on her for a moment too long: long enough for her to become acutely, uncomfortably aware of his … maleness.
Her heart kicked up a notch.
She might claim she wanted a handbag, but every so often, her repressed human needs clamoured for attention, and the ache for something real, something more, became hard to ignore.
‘A trophy boyfriend, I think you mean,’ Hamish corrected, lifting one brow.