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.
“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 string of 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 bloody influencer 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.
“Sparky, come!” I shouted and the dog came running. At least one creature showed some good sense. Wally stopped at the fence, roared his defiance, but he wasn’t going anywhere else, which gave me permission to look down.
“What…?”
I had words, so many words to say to this woman, but I couldn’t remember a single one as I looked down.
Dark brown hair fanned over my arm and it shone in the sunlight, but it was her eyes that caught at me.
Brown with flecks of green, it felt like I counted every one of them in that moment.
She fit perfectly in my arms, as if all the years I spent labouring on this damn farm were just preparation for this.
When her lips parted, when she licked them, it felt like the whole world condensed down to just that movement.
Except it didn’t.
All of the work I had to do, the people, animals, everyone depending on me wasn’t a burden I could shuck off in the face of a beautiful woman, and that’s what had me scowling.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I snapped, having been asked that question myself many a time. “Going into a bull’s field?”
“Wombat…” she croaked out, suddenly going very pale. “I… wombat.”
Before I could interrogate further, she went limp and for a moment, all I could do was stare.
“Wombat…? What the bloody hell does that mean?” The need to shake this stranger awake, to demand answers rode me hard, but something stopped me.
A tiny little sigh escaping full lips. My hand went up on its own accord, ready to push a strand of hair away from her face, when the sound of a car rolling up had me turning around. The cavalry had arrived.
“So you found out what had Wally all riled up?” Billy dropped out of the tray of the ute he, Scotty, and Bronson had driven up in.
With a long whistle, he raised an eyebrow as he checked out the stranger.
Why did that have me holding her closer to my chest?
“It’s alright, lad.” He nodded to the bull, who turned away, ready to go and chomp on some more grass.
“I’d get all excited if I saw a pretty lady too. ”
“So who is she?” Bronson asked, coming to stand in front of me. “And what was she doing in Wally’s field?”
“Not one of those PETA sods?” Scotty asked with a frown.
“Whoever she is, we’ll work that out once we take her back to the house.” I threw the keys at Billy. “You’re driving.”
“You sure?” he asked, sidling closer. “Because your arms must be getting tired. I can carry the lady…”
But they weren’t. My grip on the woman tightened as I stormed over to the back seat, waiting for Bronson to pull it open before climbing in with her. Spark scrambled in beside me, panting furiously as he eyed the woman.
“Maybe she’s that farm stay person,” Billy asked, looking back at me via the rear view mirror.
“Does she look like a James to you?” I snapped. “Now let’s get moving.”
There was no way anyone would mistake her for a man.
Soft, curves for days, she was all woman, and that was a problem.
If I saw her in a pub, I’d have turned to take a longer look.
Might even have bought her a beer, if she seemed amenable.
Just my bloody luck that the most beautiful woman I’d seen in years was some kind of insane animal activist shooting ‘content’ in one of my fields.
“What…?” Charlie asked as I strode into the house, taking in the girl, me, and then the rest of the boys.
I didn’t stop to explain. Walking down the hallway, I paused at the doors, then kicked open the nearest one.
Not my bedroom. The thought of lying her down on my bed had my cock twitching and that made me feel like shit.
The woman was unconscious. Some instinct had me walking in here.
Into Mum’s old room.
It was clean, tidy, because Charlie made a point of keeping it nice, but I hadn’t set foot in the room since Mum died. The need to get the hell out was a pleasant distraction. I checked to see if the stranger was still breathing, then laid her down on the bed and left the room.
“Her car is out in the middle of the road,” I told the boys. “Bring it in and her bags. I need to know who this trespasser is, right before I call the cops.”