Taming the Outback (9 page)

The smell of marinated steak wafted through the evening air as Libby tossed them to cook the other side. She called the boys and organized them to bring plates and cutlery while she grabbed the salads and put them all on the table. Two tall candles added a soft glow over their meal. She sat Tom at the head of the table, took the other end for herself, and placed the kids on either side. It was a good feeling, eating outside together after what they’d achieved that day. They were all happy with their day’s work and looking forward to the shearers coming and cleaning the animals up.

“That was a lovely meal.” Tom leaned back and rubbed his belly with his hands. “Thanks. It’s been a while since someone has cooked for us so much, eh, Winton?”

“Yes, missus, um, sorry, Libby.” Winton’s face split with a huge grin. “That was pretty damn good.”

“Holly, you can help me clear the table, and the boys can do the dishes,” Tom instructed. “I think your mum deserves to sit this one out. What do you reckon?”

A chorus of
yes
rang around the table, and Libby felt pleasantly relieved to have someone else in charge for a change. Tom was great for her children, and he was becoming a good friend to her. She had no qualms about having him in her house and ordering her kids around. They all accepted and treated each other as family, and that made for a big glow in her heart. They were all orphans of a kind. For too long her kids and her had missed out on having family around them. John’s father was never accepting of Libby to start with, and after the funeral, well, she tried to not go there very often.

Her mother had died when she was a teenager, and she’d been on her own until she had met John. Now they were starting to feel like they belonged again, a widow, her two kids, an old man, and an orphaned boy.
We’ll survive or die trying.
She smiled to herself. This was their home, and they were all staying and making the most of it. Will or not, Nathan Miller was not getting his hands on their land.

Libby listened to the good-natured bantering between the kids as they cleaned up the dishes. She picked a book off the side table, and curling up in the rocking chair, tried to read up on her vegetable garden some more. She was pleased with the success of her efforts, despite Josh still insisting she killed everything she touched. They were eating out of it quite well, and she was adding to the list of vegetables that had been planted before they had arrived.

_***

Nathan looked out of his kitchen window and cursed his earlier actions.
I should have just asked her nicely instead of rushing forward like an idiot.
Now he had to wait his turn, and judging by the state of her ratty sheep, it was going to take the team a while to clean them up. Much more time than it would have taken to fully crutch all his stock. Disgusted with himself, he grabbed his hat and headed to his truck. Going to play nice went against the grain, but he may as well give it one more shot.

The buzzing of the cicadas was the only noise in the still night as he headed over to see Tom and Libby. The lights were on, bathing the old house in a soft, warm glow against the darkness of the country evening. Nathan could see her curled up in one of the old rocking chairs on the front veranda with a glass of wine in her hand. Her head lifted as he drove over the cattle grate and parked the truck.

Tom was standing at the top of the stairs when he walked into the yard.

“Tom, Libby.” He nodded in her direction, his gut tightening as she stared at him. Taking another sip of her wine, she turned back to the book on her lap and ignored him.

“What can we do for you, Nathan?” Tom asked.

“I wanted to apologize for my outburst this afternoon.” He kept his gaze on Libby and tried not to notice she looked like she’d just stepped out of a warm bath. Her hair was loose with damp ringlets clinging to her neck and falling softly on her face. A healthy, pink glow covered her cheeks, and his blood heated when he realized she wasn’t wearing anything under the sloppy T-shirt except cotton boxer shorts. He looked up, realizing she had put her book down and was now watching him. Her lips parted, but no words came from her mouth. His pulse raced into overdrive.

“I’m sorry, Libby. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did, and there’s no excuse.” Nathan shifted his gaze to look at Tom rather than the scantily clad woman, willing his body not to betray him. “I assumed you wouldn’t be ready even though you have the shearers booked in. I’ve been trying to call them, but all I get is their answering service, so I don’t know what their plans are, and it’s made me a little bit edgy with this bad weather predicted.”

“No harm done,” Tom reassured. “I’m sure they have you down in the book. They always do, so stop stressing over it. Can I offer you a glass of wine or a coffee?”

“Sure, if Libby doesn’t mind, a wine would be great.” He took a seat on the top step in front of Libby’s chair as Tom went inside to get the offered drink.

“Why should I mind?” she asked gently, her gaze on his face.

“I haven’t given you the warmest welcome,” Nathan admitted.

“Nothing in my life has been that easy, so one snotty neighbor isn’t going to be the end of me.”

Nathan was saved from replying when the boys came out of the house.

“Mum, can we have the day off tomorrow?” Josh asked, speaking fast. “We can help the shearers, there’s heaps we can do.”

“I think not, but you can all pitch in once your homework is done.” She held up her hand as they moaned aloud. “And if we get through this crutching session, if we get it finished and if you guys pull your weight, we’ll go into town to the barn dance in a couple of weeks.”

Josh gawked at her until Winton whispered in his ear, and they both stumbled down the stairs to run away to the shed, giggling like a pair of schoolgirls.

Nathan shook his head at their retreating backs and turned to take the glass of wine Tom brought out to him to find Libby staring at him again. He smiled at her, but she averted her gaze and picked up her book again, giving it her full attention and leaving him with an unusual empty hole in his stomach.

“So, how is the stock looking now that you have them in?”

“I was just going to go over the last few years’ shearing records with Libby to try and figure out the best course for the farm.” Tom held up a notebook before passing it to Libby. She placed it on the table between them without opening it.

“We can go over it later.”

Nathan downed his wine as the conversation stilled and stood up. Feeling uncomfortable, he placed his empty glass on the table.

“Thanks for the wine, Tom. Night, Libby.” He aimed a glance her way.

“Night,” she mumbled, not meeting his gaze.

He cursed himself again, this time for being so stupid as to try and right this morning’s wrong. She obviously didn’t care for his apologies, and he really couldn’t blame her. It worried him that he even cared what she thought.
Damn it,
thought Nathan as he drove home. She was starting to rattle him and get under his skin. The way she interacted with her kids and Winton, the way she cared for Tom...if she weren’t a city chick, he would give his feelings more than a passing thought. Just because she stirred his blood and made his body take notice was no reason to get more involved than just being neighborly. A cold shower would fix him and bring him back to his senses. Heaven forbid he make the same mistakes he had made in the past.

“I can’t take this anymore, Nathan. Living in the sticks is dragging me down.” Eliza crossed her arms and stamped her foot.

“I told you it was isolated out here when you wanted to move out,” Nathan said, running a hand through his hair. A sick feeling was settling in his gut, and he knew it was all but over when he saw her suitcase beside the kitchen table when he’d walked in. “Look, let’s talk about this. I don’t want to lose you, Eliza. I love you.” He reached out his hand and tried to catch her fingers, but she stepped back. “There has to be a way to make this work. Why don’t we plan a week to see your folks once the shearing is done? That will be something to look forward to, won’t it?”

“How long will that be?” She looked at him with her lips set in a tight line.

“Three or four weeks at the most.”

“No, I want to go now.” She pouted her lips and turned, showing him her back, straight and determined.

“I can’t go now; you know that. The shearers are booked, and we need to do the crutching, or we’ll end up with fly strike.”

“If you loved me, you’d put me before your smelly sheep, Nathan.”

“Things have to work on a schedule out here, Eliza. I can’t just up and go whenever I want to. Farming’s like that.”

“Well. That says it all, doesn’t it? Your farm comes before your future wife.” She picked her purse up from the table and took out her mobile phone. “Rodney said he would give me a lift back to the city. I’m going. You can send the rest of my stuff later.”

“Are you serious? You’re going back to town with that sleazy tractor salesman?”

“Yes, I am. You won’t give me what I want, and this place has lost its appeal. I’m a city girl at heart, Nathan, and I’m afraid I can’t change that. It’s the way I am. Good-bye.” She picked up her suitcase and walked down the stairs and out of the yard.

Nathan stood, shocked and gutted. He hadn’t even realized Eliza was unhappy. She’d never said a word until now. He heard a car pull into the driveway, a door slam, and then she was gone.

_***

“This here is the record of the shearing. See how many sheep this place was running even five years ago?” Tom asked before Libby could sneak off to bed. “If we could get a couple of hands, we could bring it up to those numbers again.”

She flipped through the pages of the book, thinking as she read the figures. Over the last ten years, they had gone from running 8,000 sheep, to what they brought in today. There would be a mere 1,300 if they were lucky.

“Want to tell me how we could go about it?” she asked, her gaze on his weather-beaten face.

He sat back in his chair and ran through what he thought was a good plan. She would have to speak to Aaron, but he had said they had money for certain expenses. Libby had some money put away as well, and if she had to, she would use it to get the farm viable again. She wasn’t going to walk away without putting up a bloody good fight.

“What do you think?”

“I like it. We should do up a plan on paper and see. I mean, after we sort out what we have and what we have to get rid of, we can approach Aaron and talk to a...what do you call them, stock agent?”

“Yeah, you’ll probably meet Jonas at the dance. He’s the local agent around here,” Tom explained. “He’ll be there with everyone else in town. It’s one of the best places to do business, believe it or not. We might even find a couple of helpers too. We can at least put out the word we’re hiring anyway.”

“I’m looking forward to it.” Libby mused over the possibilities of restocking the station. “What about the cattle? How are we placed with them?”

“We could use some new blood, to tell you the honest truth. I don’t much like the old bulls we have, and if you really want to improve the beef you have, you should try what Nathan is doing.”

Libby sat up in her seat. She bristled again at the thought of the man calling her cow’s mongrels, and to think she let him sit and drink wine on her steps without choking him for his ignorant behavior. “What is he doing?”

“His cows are Drought Master, same as most of yours, but he’s crossing them with Brahmin bulls. They say the meat is better, and there’s more of it for no extra work. I think he’s onto something. They’re being dubbed a super breed by those in the know.”

“What would we have to do though?” Libby frowned and leaned forward, eager to hear everything.

“Get rid of the old bulls you have and replace them with a least a couple of good Brahmins. They’re expensive, no doubt about it, but you can get a decent price for the steers and bulls you have. You don’t stand to lose anything by trying, Libby.”

“Can we deal with the sheep first and then talk about it some more?” she asked. One thing at a time, or she would lose the plot. She had so much to learn and doubted it she could take it all in at once.

“Sure. Now I’m going to take this old body to bed.” Tom ruffled Holly’s hair as he passed her. “I’ll wake you up to feed those young’uns in the morning.”

“Night, Tom. Thanks for today.”

They watched him head to his quarters before Libby stood up and pulled Holly to her feet. “Bed for you, baby,” she said, walking her inside.

C
HAPTER
S
IX

Libby fell into a troubled sleep. The last thing she’d wanted was to have Nathan in her face before she went to bed. It was bad enough she fantasized about him during the day, but going to bed tonight was going to be difficult with visions of him haunting her dreams. Twisting and restless, she became tangled in the sheets as she fought for sleep.

She walked into the community hall and searched the room for a familiar face. Her gaze found Nathan’s, and plucking up courage, she walked slowly across the room toward him. Nathan pulled her forward and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, holding her close to his chest, her head tucked neatly under his chin as he kissed the top of her hair. Libby breathed a sigh of relief she had found him, and her arm went around his broad back as she turned and watched the band warm up for another dance.