A Bush Christmas (5 page)

‘Not too bad,' he said. ‘A good dash of an antiseptic on the broken skin might be enough.'

He glanced up and she could see exactly the moment it hit him she'd been crying. Her swollen lids, and the redness around her eyes, were like a flashing billboard:
Yes, I've been crying. And what's more, I've been doing it all night!

She pushed his hands away and got to her feet. This morning she'd vowed never to make a fool of herself again in front of this man. She wasn't going to renege on that now.

‘I'm fine.' Jaime moved towards the back door at a fast clip. Well, at a fast
limping
clip. The claw marks hurt like hell. She was shocked when a pair of hands came from behind and spun her round.

‘You'd been crying before the cat attacked you.' Stirling was standing in front of her as big and as immovable as the mountains. ‘Why?'

So much for a clean getaway.

‘It hurts.' There, try that for size, Mr Marble Man. Now he'd just think she was a wuss rather than a mushy, gooey animal-lover (cats not included).

Stirling's brow was doing its caving-in thing again. ‘You've been crying for a while.'

‘No, I haven't.'

‘I can tell. I've got a sister and two nieces.'

Okay, so she might be snookered. She may as well just come out with it. It's not as if she
cared
what Stirling McEvoy thought of her, anyway. ‘I just don't like wasteful and aimless shooting of poor, defenceless animals.'

There, she'd said it. She crossed her arms, straightened her spine and tried to ignore the pain in her leg. She risked a quick glance up at Stirling. If the man frowned any harder he'd cause an avalanche on that face of his.

‘Poor defenceless animals, huh? And just how do you figure that?'

‘Well, you shot them and left them there. You weren't shooting for any reason other than the thrill of the kill!' Like her stepfather, Dave. He was probably out blundering around the bush right now, trying to shoot Bambi.

Stirling McEvoy gave her one last withering glare before turning on his heels to walk back down the path.

‘Well, aren't you going to say anything in your defence?' she called to his retreating back. How dare he just turn and walk away!

‘Why waste words?' Stirling threw over his shoulder. ‘You hoity-toity girls are all the same. You've made up your mind anyway.'

‘Maybe I've missed something, although I can't for the life of me think what,' she called.

That stopped him. He slowly spun back and formed a mirror of her own stance, back straight, arms folded, and square chin in a belligerent pose. Then he spoke in a deceptively mild voice. ‘Those rabbits you appear so fond of are responsible for the severe gully erosion in the paddock beyond that fence line they were living on …'

Jaime could feel her mouth opening and closing. Erosion? She'd seen erosion around the creeks with her dad when they'd been fishing. It made a terrible mess. Took hundreds of years to repair itself. And looking at Stirling's face she had a feeling this explanation was about to make her feel a whole lot worse.

‘… and Valerie has spent thousands upon thousands of dollars fencing out that gully and many others like it on Polly's Plains and we have been revegetating them to try and arrest the erosion, but
your
bunnies keep eating the new trees as fast as we can plant them.'

Geez, why did he have to make it all sound so plausible?

‘And what's more, shooting them, in my opinion, is one hell of a more humane way to exterminate wild rabbits than what can be a painful, drawn out death from a virus like Calici …'

He had her there.

‘… so I suggest,
Mizz
JJ Hanrahan, you get your facts right first before you go wasting your precious tears on pests and vermin. Goodnight.'

Stirling McEvoy about-faced and stormed down the path, leaving Jaime staring after him.

She looked up to the stars and mumbled, ‘Well, Dad, I sure as heck put my foot in that one.'

As the motorbike rumbled to life and took off, Buster gave one short sharp bark. Jaime couldn't help but wonder if the dog was saying goodbye or … ‘
So there!'

The next morning, Jaime had resolved that she needed to apologise to Stirling.

But the best way to do that was …?

She ruminated over that thought in the garden while she weeded, trimmed and hacked at the overgrown bushes causing her the most angst.

She had now worked out why her father spent so much time in his backyard pottering. It was therapeutic and allowed you to think of virtually nothing for hours on end, except from where the next weed was to be pulled.

But therapeutic or not, by morning tea time she knew she had to make amends with the man she'd wrongly accused of a meaningless mass (bunny) murder. She decided to take a drive in the Suzuki to his house, in the hopes of catching him at home having a cuppa. She might even get a look inside his house this time if she was lucky.

She
was
in luck. He wasn't having a drink but he was outside hooking some rope-like stuff around his verandah posts. As she drove up Buster barked hello and came running up, sniffing at the Suzuki tyres before letting fly with a stream of piss.

Stirling yelled ‘
BUSTER!'
before whistling the dog back to his side where he was now wrestling with metres and metres of long white strings. ‘Give me a hand here, will you?'

Jaime looked around but then realised this instruction was for her. She shook her head and grinned. Men. They were an amazing species. While women tossed and turned all night, a recent argument playing back and forth through their minds, dissecting who said what, when and where, men just forgot all about it and moved on.

Although when she finally stepped up onto Marble Man's verandah, the taut look on his rugged face yelled loud and clear that this man
hadn't
forgotten. Not one little word.

He held out the end of a string. ‘Pull this gently, will you, so I can get this whole roll unravelled in one piece.' She took the end offered and started to walk backwards. She didn't even register what she was holding, so intent was she on what she wanted to say.

‘I'm sorry.' The words came out all rough and squeaky. She cleared her throat. She'd always found it hard to admit she was wrong. Her dad had tried to get her out of that, saying it was better to admit your mistakes than have to live with the guilt of it forever. Plus, when
she
got to the Pearly Gates of Heaven, she didn't want St Peter's list of her transgressions to go on all day
and
night!

‘I've come to apologise for making such a hasty judgement of your behaviour last night.' Shit! That didn't come out right either. His
behaviour?
It sounded like she was still pissed with him. ‘I mean, I'm sorry for judging you without knowing all the facts.' There. Now it was up to him.

‘That's fine. You weren't to know.' He waved his hands in a shooing motion. ‘Can you drag those lights back out towards the gate, please?'

That was it?

Gobsmacked, she looked down at the rope in her hands and nearly dropped the strands in fright. They were Christmas lights. Hundreds and hundreds of little red, green, yellow and blue budlights. She
wasn't doing
Christmas this year. Possibly not ever again! She glanced back at the man who was making her get up close and personal with the festive season.

He wasn't looking at her. He'd moved along the verandah, brow furrowed, head down, working the knotted strands of what she now realised was fine electrical wire. She was stuffed. She couldn't drop the stuff and leave now. It'd look like she was a high-maintenance chick walking off in a huff. Which was obviously what he expected girls like her to do. Tifffany must've been like that.

Maybe if she did what he asked and just averted her eyes? Yes, that was it. She'd concentrate on his garden and the insects that were communing in buzzing ecstasy over his highly perfumed roses. She wouldn't even look down at the tiny lights in her hands.

But unbidden came the memories. She, her mum and dad would do the ‘Christmas light drive' to The Boulevard in Ivanhoe. They'd eventually find a park, jump out of the car and wander down the decorated street, ooh-ing and ahh-ing along with everyone else. The displays on these houses were incredible and it seemed half of Melbourne turned out to enjoy the lights, causing massive traffic jams.

‘There, I think I've got it,' came Stirling's satisfied voice from somewhere over the variegated Pittosporum trees.

He'd disappeared from her view a few minutes ago. The line in her hand went taut then slack.

‘Right, I'll just get up on the ladder. Can you feed the lights along to me? I'll grab some tinsel to tie them to the fretwork between the posts.'

Tinsel? Oh crap! And how could she concentrate on his garden if she had to feed lights to him above her head? Jaime kicked out at the gravel, followed by the garden gate. Her Colorado boots sure were getting a workout today.

‘You okay down there?' yelled Stirling.

‘Fine. I'm just fine,' said Jaime, suddenly realising that the string of lights had gone taut again. He obviously wanted her to come back towards him and his damnable Christmas decorations.

Oh look, there was a bee. No, there were two bees buzzing around that gorgeous red velvet rose.

‘Princess, I need you to help me here. It's not a tug-of-war, you know.'

Jaime moved a few feet towards Stirling and trained her eyes on the flowers. A dragonfly was having a lovely time flitting amongst the petals.

‘More lights please.'

Damn it. Couldn't he see she was busy admiring his flowers?

‘More …'

Obviously not.

‘And that might just about do it. Hang on, I'll shift the ladder.'

Jaime rolled her eyes at Buster, who'd come up to sniff at her bare legs. ‘Don't you dare piss on me,' she warned the dog. Buster barked and rolled over onto his back, baring his belly for a scratch. She laughed. Leant down and gave the dog a scruff. Realised she couldn't hear Stirling anymore.

What
was
he doing? He was awful quiet.

She peered through the Pittosporums. Couldn't see him for a moment. Then she sighted a massive blow-up Santa Claus exiting the garden shed. Oh hell no.

Was the man mad? Since when did a fully grown male, who lived by himself, one who was stoic, taciturn and grumpy most of the time, get all sentimental about Christmas?

Stirling must have spotted her and the disbelieving look on her face. He shrugged. ‘My nieces love him.'

And if she had been doing Christmas this year, she would have too. But seeing she wasn't …

‘Look. Are you finished with me? Can I go now?'

Stirling propped Santa against the verandah post and came towards her. ‘Sure. You can go. Polly's Plains was part of the free world last time I looked.'

Jaime pulled a wry expression. ‘Thanks for that.' She carefully placed her end of the lights on the ground. ‘I just wanted to say sorry for being such an idiot. Now I'll be off.'

‘Mmm …' Stirling was peering at her with a calculating look. ‘What do you have on now?'

Jaime pursed her lips. ‘I intended on trying to make friends with The Cat. He attacked me again this morning.'

‘What are you feeding him?'

‘Dry food that I found in the cupboard.'

Stirling's mouth quirked. ‘He likes Dine.'

‘That's what I'm trying to get him to do. Dine. The bag says it's got all the essential good stuff in it. But I'm not winning any favours.'

The man let out a slow chuckle. ‘No. He likes to
eat
Dine, you know, the cat food.'

‘Then why did Valerie leave instructions to give him the dry stuff?'

‘Dodge won't eat the dry food unless she's there feeding it to him. Those two dote on each other. Listen, I'll get you some Dine if I'm down in Lake Grace.'

Jaime hoped she looked grateful but underneath she was a little hurt. Why hadn't he mentioned this before? Because he wanted her to be hated and clawed by
The Cat? And no way was she calling the feline by its name, which appeared to be Dodge. The Cat would do her fine.

‘I didn't mention it as you didn't appear to like cats.'

‘I don't as a rule. My family much prefer dogs but that doesn't mean to say I can't
try
to get The Cat to like me.'

‘Mmm …'

There was that calculating look again.

‘So if I get you some Dine and take care of the cat problem, you'd be free for the next little while?'

Jaime frantically searched her mind for something else plausible to do. She couldn't claim the garden as being important and the internet wasn't beckoning as she'd already cruised the situations vacant sites last night. She was coming up a total blank.

‘Maybe. Why?'

‘I just need the Suzuki and a spare pair of hands. I'll pull in these lights, tie up Santa and we can go.'

‘But I haven't said …' Jaime stopped. She was talking to air. He was gone.

She kicked the gate again and spun back towards the ute. She didn't know why she was feeling so disgruntled. After all, she
had
come to apologise. And now she really should help him as recompense. Deep down she knew it was all this Christmas stuff. She had come up here to get away from the festive season, not get thrown right in amongst it.

‘You want to drive?'

She jumped. For a big man he was as silent as a panther. ‘I've hooked on the trailer. You
have
driven with a trailer before?'

Not waiting for her reply, Stirling took off across the big gravel yard, tossing over his shoulder, ‘Just drive over towards the machinery shed, will you?'

Jaime eyed off the trailer with misgivings. She
had
towed a trailer. Once. And had managed to jack-knife the thing. Hopefully that wouldn't happen again. She just had to remember her father's instructions after that little incident, which had left a dent in her mother's ‘new' secondhand Mercedes. ‘When you're reversing chase the trailer, Princess. Chase it with the car and you'll be fine.'

Unfortunately her mother had been anything but fine when she saw the damage to her precious Merc. But eventually she'd got over it after her father shouted a new paint job for the car.

Jaime jumped into the Suzuki. Buster leaped in behind her, sat up on the seat and looked at her with a big doggy grin. She chuckled. You couldn't stay jacked off for long with that happy Kelpie face smiling at you.

She fired up the old ute and drove over to where Stirling now stood with a toolbox and Stihl chainsaw. They must be cutting wood. What for? It had to be at least thirty degrees in the shade.

Stirling stowed his gear and then slid into the passenger seat of the Suzuki. With his knees pressed against the dash and his head hitting the roof, he made the ute's cab shrink to the size of a Smart Car. Buster wriggled up against Jaime, tucked his head under her arm and licked the side of her face.

She wiped the slag off her cheek and grinned at the dog.

‘Well, Dodge mightn't like you, but Buster thinks you're a bit of all right,' said Stirling.

She scruffed Buster's neck then glanced across at Stirling. ‘And I think he's a handsome fellow, too.' Her eyes caught the man sitting opposite her. Time seemed to
pause, then lean and scuttle sideways. What was it she just said? Her mind was turning to soup. And still they drank each other in. The flinty eyes opposite her were pooled with an emotion she couldn't define. Was it trepidation? Regret? Or something more benign, like ‘just hurry the hell up and start driving'?

Stirling broke the contact first. He glanced forward, away from her questioning face and cleared his throat. ‘We'd better get these trees, otherwise we'll be late.'

What trees? And late for whom?

‘Um … Where do you want to go?' asked Jaime.

Stirling threw an arm out the window. ‘Just head down the main drive, turn left and then along the road for about five kilometres. You'll see a paddock of trees come up amongst the cleared land to your right.'

‘What are we doing there?'

‘Harvesting Christmas trees.'