Summer Down Under (11 page)

Sam looked down at her and laughed. “I’m
guessing you want a shower?” she asked the bird. She dipped her
hands in the soapy water and lifted them above Lucrecia to sprinkle
droplets over her head. Lucrecia showed her appreciation by bobbing
her head and started flapping her wings and squawking her approval.
Sam could see that she was going to get soaked, too, playing this
game, but it made her laugh. The bird looked so cute.

After playing with her for a few minutes, Sam
got back to work on the dishes. She and Daniel worked well as the
dish washing team and had the dishes washed, dried and put away in
no time.

“Come on,” Daniel said. “I’ll show you the
rest of the house.”

Lucrecia climbed back onto Sam’s shoulder,
and they followed Daniel down the corridor. They wandered straight
through the dining room and exited through a door on the other side
that led outdoors.

“The house is very old by Aussie standards,”
Daniel explained. “It has been added onto over the generations.
This part of the house was added about fifty years ago.”

The whole house was encircled by a covered
deck. Daniel pointed to several rooms that were used as guest
rooms, each having their own separate entrance from the deck. They
walked a bit further and passed a door that Daniel told her was his
parent’s room. It was almost the size of another small house, and
was completely self-contained with its own bathroom and living
room.

Passing his parent’s room, they carried on
down the deck until it ended with a door that was closed. Daniel
opened the door and waited for Sam to walk through it.

“Thank you,” she said, to which he inclined
his head.

“This is our screened in poolroom leading to
the swimming pool outside,” he announced. He was obviously very
proud of this area of the homestead. Sam looked around in awe. The
screen room was huge just like every other room in this palace in
the outback. The sun was just setting, and they walked through the
door that led straight outside to the swimming pool.

She had seen it from the air, but, up close,
the pool was spectacular, and the water, calm and inviting. To the
left of it, she could see the tennis court; a high chain link fence
surrounded it to keep the stray balls in and the kangaroos out. The
air outside was becoming cool. The seasons in Australia were
reversed and although it was the beginning of June, they were
headed into their coolest months.

As they watched the sun go down, Daniel
explained that the climate there was rather like a dessert climate.
It could get cold at night, but during the day it could still be
very warm.

“It’s so beautiful out here.” Sam whispered,
not wanting to spoil the tranquility of the moment.

“I think so.” Daniel agreed. “It’s my home,
and one day I hope to find someone who will love it as much as I do
and will stand by my side when I take it over from my parents.”

He turned to look at Sam, his eyes searching
her soul. She held his gaze for a moment before looking away. The
chill in the air reached through her clothes, but she couldn’t
decide if it was Daniel’s intense gaze or the night air that made
her start to shiver.

“You’re cold,” Daniel stated. “Come on, let’s
turn in. We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.” With that, he wrapped a
protective arm around her and guided her back to her room.

“I’ll just put Lucrecia to bed,” Sam told him
as he stood by her door. “Good night Daniel. I’ll see you in the
morning.” She walked away towards the kitchen and out of his
sight.

The incredible smell of bacon and eggs
wafting down the hall, and into Sam’s room, roused the newly
appointed jillaroo the next morning. Muffled voices could be heard
coming from the kitchen. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and
looked over to the clock on the nightstand. An involuntary groan
escaped her vocal chords when she read the time that was displayed.
It was 6:30 a.m. Jillaroo or not, she was not used to waking up
this early, and it didn’t agree with her.

She struggled out of bed, pulled on her robe,
and headed towards the bathroom. Still half asleep and not looking
where she was going, she bumped headfirst into Daniel’s chest. That
woke her up. Startled, Sam looked up to be greeted by a pair of
beautiful blue eyes and a welcoming smile.

“Good morning,” he said, smiling down at his
new colleague. His dark hair was all disheveled, and he looked
absolutely delicious. Sam, on the other hand, decided she probably
looked like a dog’s dinner. The only consolation being that she had
stopped wearing make up a while ago on her travels, so this time,
she knew he wasn’t greeted with panda eyes like before, but she
could more or less guarantee her hair was still doing it’s struck
by lightning routine.

“Err, good morning,” she replied, then
gestured for Daniel to go into the bathroom. “You first.”

“Absolutely not,” he retorted, brows
furrowed. “Ladies first.” Daniel gestured for her to step into the
bathroom.

“But it’s your house,” Sam argued.

“But you’re a guest,” Daniel argued back.

Hands on hips, Sam puffed out her chest, such
that it was.

“I am not a guest,” she huffed indignantly.
“I am a paid employee of your mother and father,
and
I
intend to stay that way.”

Daniel’s expression softened, and a smile
threatened to dance around the corner of his lips, which just
aggravated her even more.

“Sam,” he said, throwing her a martyred look.
“We can argue about this all day, but the fact of the matter is, I
will not enter through that door before you, and I’m hungry and
would like some breakfast. You would be doing me a favor if you
would use the bathroom first and we can both go and have something
to eat.” With that, he turned on his heel and disappeared into his
bedroom. Sam narrowed her eyes at his departing back and muttered
something about chivalrous men as she gave up her stand and stepped
into the bathroom.

A little while later after having washed, she
wandered outside to where the menagerie of chickens, turkeys, geese
and ducks called home. They were excited to see her; crowding
around her feet so that she had to shuffle her way in, being
careful not to step on any of them.

After filling all of their feed troughs and
scattering plenty of food around with her hands, they scurried off
in all directions to eat their breakfast, leaving Sam free to
search their nesting boxes for fresh eggs.

She carefully placed her spoils into the
container Mrs. Miller had given her for the task. After making sure
that she had retrieved them all, she headed back inside so she
could finally get to work on her own breakfast, which was
delicious. As they were finishing up, Mr. Miller started giving
them their instructions for the day.

“We’ll all go up in the plane to see where
the sheep are,” he explained. “Then you two can go out on the bikes
and muster them back here. That should take most of the day.
Tomorrow we’ll draft them...that means sort them, Sam,” he said to
the jillaroo-in-training’s questioning look, “into groups and start
the lamb marking.”

Sam looked over to Daniel hoping he would see
the panicked expression on her face. He did and leaned over.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered.

“I don’t know how to ride a motorbike,” she
admitted. “Sophie told me I would be taught everything I needed to
know.”

“Don’t worry. You can ride the four-wheeler,
we didn’t expect you to be able to ride a motorbike.”

She heaved a sigh of relief at that statement
and smiled at him.

It looked like Mrs. Miller was to do the
dishes during the day, as they were all excused to go to work while
she bustled about the table collecting the dirty dishes and taking
them into the kitchen.

It still boggled Sam’s mind that these people
used a plane like normal people used a car. After about fifteen
minutes in the air, they spotted the flock of sheep. The flock was
quite away from the holding pen where they were to muster them to.
Daniel’s dad wasn’t kidding when he said it would take most of the
day.

Mr. Miller flew back to the house, and after
landing, Daniel got the sheep dogs out. Sam fleetingly wondered how
the dogs were going to get all the way to where the sheep were.
They would be exhausted by the time they got there, if they had to
run all the way.

This was Sam’s first introduction to the
dogs, and Daniel told her their names.

“This is Archie,” he said pointing to the
older looking dog. “And this is the baby, her name is Jess. She’s
about a year old now.”

Sam bent down to pet them and was quickly
reprimanded by a condescending voice.

“They are working dogs, not pets!” Mr. Miller
bellowed at her. Startled, Sam straightened and whispered
‘Sorreeee’ under her breath.

Daniel looked her way rolling his eyes
slightly as if to ask forgiveness for his Father’s rudeness.

“You can take Jess today,” Mr. Miller
barked.

“But, Dad,” Daniel groaned. “She’s
hopeless.”

“She needs the experience, and I’ll not hear
another word on the subject.” Mr. Miller called Archie to heel and
strode off in the direction of the house.

“Not one to mince words, your father,” Sam
whispered to Daniel when Mr. Miller was out of earshot.

“His bark is worse than his bite.”

Sam raised her eyebrows. Where had she heard
that before?

As Daniel gave Sam instructions on how to
operate the four-wheeler, she inwardly sighed with relief. It
looked simple enough; even her clumsy self felt confident enough
that she could master it without ending up overturned in a
ditch.

Daniel walked towards his bike and called to
Jess. Sam goggled as the young dog leaped onto the back of his seat
and stuck to it like she was sitting on Velcro. They took off
across the paddocks to where the flock of sheep was.

Sam followed Daniel across the fields until
they came to a dried out creek that more resembled a half-pike that
the Olympic snowboarders would use. Daniel rode down one side and
straight up the other with ease. Waiting on the other side, he
turned to look at his apprentice jillaroo.

“Come on, then,” he beckoned across the great
divide that was looking bigger and steeper as every second
passed.

Okay, so maybe Sam could see her clumsy self
overturned in a ditch, after all. Self-preservation kicked in.

“You must be kidding!” Sam yelled back. “I
can’t do that.”

“You have to Sam,” he called. “It’s the only
way across. You can do it, you’ll be fine.”

She shot him an incredulous glare. Who did he
think she was, Evel Knievel? This was her first time on a
four-wheeler for goodness sake. Sam shook her head. There was no
way she could make it down there and then back up the other side in
one piece.

“Trust me,” he called again. “Just give it
some revs and go for it.”

Sam wondered how she got herself into these
situations and closed her eyes.

“Give it some revs?” she muttered derisively,
before pulling back on the throttle and hanging on for dear life.
She screamed all the way down one side and back up the other.
Within seconds, she had made it over to the other bank.

“Yay, I made it!” She cried upon opening her
eyes and finding herself still in one piece. Although, she probably
wouldn’t have been able to stand at that moment, her legs had
turned to jelly.

“Told you you’d be fine,” Daniel said, giving
her a look that Sam could swear was filled with pride. They carried
on in the direction of the sheep.

The ground from the air had looked flat, but
riding across it at full pelt was quite a different matter. It was
incredibly bumpy with lots of rocks all over the place. Until this
point in time, Sam had never noticed that her boobs were worth
acknowledging, insignificant as they were, but today they were
making their presence felt loud and clear.

By the time they got to the sheep, her chest
was actually starting to feel quite sore. She would never have
imagined that she would need a support bra, but need one she
did.

Daniel explained that they needed to ride
slowly behind the flock and move up and down the sides thus keeping
them moving forward, but keeping them in a relatively tight group.
That way, they would follow the leaders and stay together. Once the
sheep were moving, he relaxed a little and fell in beside Sam. They
started talking. She loved how easy it was for the two of them to
fall into a conversation. She had become quite confident on the
four-wheeler and didn’t need to concentrate on balance, so she
started to take her eyes off the flock in front of them and looked
over at Daniel while she was talking to him.

“So,” Sam said. “If your intention is to take
over this place from your parents, why did you go to college and
earn a degree?”

“Mum and Dad insisted that I did so I could
see some of the ‘outside’ world and make up my own mind as to
whether or not I wanted to continue on...Sam, watch out!” Daniel
yelled, eyes wide.

Sam turned to see where she was going, but it
was too late. She drove straight into a gigantic spider web that
was spun between two bushes. The huge spider that had spun it was
right at head height. She couldn’t stop in time and rode right
through it, the sticky web clinging to her face like a mask. Sam
jumped off the four-wheeler, screaming.

“Get it off me! Get it off me!” she screamed
at the top of her lungs, hands tearing at her face and hair. She
was gripped in panic, deathly afraid of spiders.

Daniel dropped his bike and was there in
seconds. She could feel him pulling gently at her hair, though how
he managed it with her hands flailing around her head as
frantically as they were, she’d never know. She saw him stomp on
something out of the corner of her eye but kept screaming. Her
breathing came in rapid gasps. She could feel her hands start to
tingle, but they were still clawing at her hair and face.