A Bush Christmas (8 page)

When Jaime woke up she couldn't work out where she was. She was reclining somewhere and a bongo drum was playing the rumba in her head. Her mouth was as dry as a parched puddle of bulldust and she couldn't figure out how she'd got to wherever she was.

She half sat up and peered around through slitted eyes. The afternoon sunlight boring in from outside was making the rumba turn into a salsa. She flopped back down. She was on the couch in the lounge. The last thing she remembered was–?

Oh, hell no. The kitchen, sponges and Stirling McEvoy. She cringed.
He
must have put her on the couch. She moaned, how embarrassing.

She lay there for a good five minutes and tried to pull herself together, then heaved herself off the couch. She best go and see what other damage she'd inflicted on the place. If she remembered rightly the kitchen was a train smash.

As she walked through the kitchen door she was met by the sound of the dishwasher whirring, the scent of Pine O Clean and the sight of no less than
five
amazing sponges all sitting on the bench under fly covers. She sat on the nearest bar stool agog.

The kitchen was sparkling.

Stirling McEvoy to the rescue. Again.

The man deserved a medal for this little effort. But unfortunately her head wasn't going to allow her to deliver one just yet. She got up and staggered to the medicine chest. She'd never been able to hold her liquor, which was why she usually steered clear of the stuff. Grappling for painkillers, she popped a couple of tablets from their packet and downed them with a cup of water that was sitting on the bench
top. The same cup she remembered Stirling handing her just before she passed out. She gave the bench another cursory glance and saw, balanced perfectly on its end, a roll of Beroccas. Ha! So the man thought she'd have a hangover?

Well, she was going to find a shower and her beautiful, comfy bed, because she hated to admit it, but he was right.

 

It was dark when Jaime woke again. She felt much better than last time. The painkillers had done their job, as had a restorative sleep. She looked at her watch. It was only ten o'clock.

She wondered what had woken her.

A rustle came from under her bed, followed by a scratching near the bedside table.

What the hell?

‘C'mon, Cat, stop playing funny buggers,' she called into the blackness of her room.

All was quiet once more.

Until a thump followed by some heavy scrabbling came again.

She went to flick on the light. Nothing happened. Okay, this was getting a bit weird. The lamp had been plugged in and working last time she'd used it. Maybe the power had gone out? The rustle was louder now and followed by a loud bump. Suddenly The Cat made a screeching meow and jumped to somewhere in the middle of the room.

Feeling quivers of unease, she called out again, ‘What's going on, Cat?'

Another hiss and snarl.

She had a torch around here somewhere. Jaime slid her hand down over the side of the bed. Touched a soft furry bundle. She let out a yell, which scared The Cat because it was hissing and spitting from what sounded like up on top of the wardrobe. Which meant …

… her hand hadn't touched The Cat.

What the–?

She finally found the torch beside her pillow. Quickly switched it on.

A pair of big round white eyes were reflected back at her.

She screamed at the top of her lungs.

It wasn't The Cat; that was now obvious. The fur was grey-brown rather than blue and over the creature's back was a tail curled around tight like a snail's shell. Claws the size of a witch's talons were clinging to her doona.

Jaime flew out the other side of the bed, screaming so much it became one long squeal of terror.

‘
ARGHHHH!'

She fled down the passage into the kitchen, across the enclosed verandah and right out the back door, still squealing …

… only to slam into a hard male chest coming in the opposite direction.

‘ARGHHHH!'
she screamed again.

‘Relax, Princess. It's only me.' Stirling McEvoy's steady voice was like balm. She sank into his arms in relief and stayed there. No way was she moving anywhere with that creature on the loose in the house!

She could feel her whole body trembling and the man who held her must have felt it too, because he pulled her into his embrace even tighter and held on. It was
glorious. Like she was encased in warmth and muscle. She fit neatly in against his body, completely immersed in his cuddle. It was sublime.

Slowly her tremors receded and Stirling reached down and pulled up her chin. ‘Want to tell me what that was all about?'

‘A poss–' She stopped and swallowed. ‘A possum is in my room. Up on my bed!'

Stirling's brow sunk low, and then all of a sudden he was
laughing!

She tried to wriggle free from his grasp, but he was having none of it. His arms had her pinned against him. So tight in fact, she felt parts she probably shouldn't have.

‘I guess he was kinda lonely then.' Stirling's voice came in snatches from above her head. ‘It's a big world out in them there hills for a single possum.'

Jaime was about to wrench herself free, when all of the sudden she heard her father's voice as clear as if he was right beside her.
You have to learn to laugh at yourself, Princess. Don't take things that really aren't important too seriously.

She pictured the scene in the bedroom. On reflection she was sure the poor possum looked as scared as she was. And it was about time The Cat got his bloody comeuppance. She could still hear the snarls and hisses. From the outside peering in, it must have been pretty funny. She started to giggle and found her chin being lifted in the air again.

‘Oh, you're laughing? Thank goodness for that. I thought I was going to have a hysterical female on my hands.'

‘As compared to a screaming one?' said Jaime, laughter bubbling up again. ‘Oh hell, that must have been the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me yet. Wait till I tell the girls back home in town about it.'

Abruptly Stirling's arms let go of her. She stepped back, grabbing his retreating arm for balance. What was that all about? All she'd said was–

Aha, the girls and home in town. Her discussion with Ryan sprung to mind. Stirling McEvoy had it in for women from town thanks to Fancy-pants Tiffany.

Jaime shivered. She realised she was dressed in only a barely-there singlet and undies. She crossed her legs, snatched a quick glance at Stirling to see if he'd taken note.

He'd noticed all right. He was staring at her high-beam nipples with the concentration of a cat stalking a mouse. She quickly wrapped her arms around her body.

Stirling blinked, shook himself. ‘Guess I better go catch a possum.' His face had gone a bright shade of red.

Jaime grinned. Marble Man blushing? Now there was a turn up for the books.

She flung an arm through the air towards the open screen door. ‘Go ahead. Be my guest.'

 

It took a sturdy wire possum trap, some grapes for bait and a whole lot of patience but eventually Stirling caught the possum. Though not before the furry intruder had shat all over her bed. Yuck!

Jaime, meanwhile, had found a navy dressing gown hanging behind the door in the bathroom. Distinctly male, with ‘S' embroidered on the front panel. Stirling's first name started with an S.

‘There you are, Princess. All done and dusted.' Stirling stood at the door with the cage in his hand. The possum inside it was
huge
.

‘You're not going to shoot it or anything, are you?' She couldn't bear the thought of that.

‘Hell, no. Then I'd have to dig a hole.' Stirling laughed at her shocked expression. ‘I thought we'd got past that one. I don't kill animals just for the fun of it.' He glanced down at the cage and at the large possum trying to cower in the back corner. ‘I'll take him down the river and let him go. That suit you?'

Jaime nodded. ‘Thank you.'

‘Glad I was around. I was coming to see if you were all right. The last time I saw you, you were a little under the weather.'

Jaime clapped a hand to her mouth. Oh my God. In all the excitement about the possum she'd forgotten her drunken behaviour. And the sponges!

She walked over to the man standing at the door. Reached up and placed a light kiss on his cheek. Mmmm, he did smell nice. She had to force herself to move away. The memory of his hug was intoxicating.

Stirling put a hand to his face. ‘What was that all about?'

‘Thank you again.' She pointed towards the kitchen. ‘For the cakes and cleaning up the mess. For putting me to bed … and the Berocca.' She smiled at the last one. ‘You've been great.'

Stirling grimaced. ‘Goodnight,' he said as he walked out the door, leaving Jaime to stare after him. What was it with the man? He was all soft and mushy one minute and as prickly as a hairbrush the next. Bloody Tiffany. She'd obviously made him wary around women.

But he had caught the possum, and that meant a lot. She now needed to find another place to sleep and she'd be right for the night. She really didn't want to go searching for another cold bedroom in this place. She cast her eye around the lounge
and focused on the couch. It had been pretty comfy this afternoon. Maybe a bit more communing with that leather would be good.

She went down the hall to the linen press and dragged out some spare sheets and blankets. Grabbed a pillow and took it all back to the lounge. She soon had the couch looking something like a bed. As she moved to the window to close the drapes, a brilliantly lit house across the paddock caught her eye, followed by the massive Polly's Plains entrance gate. They were both hard to miss seeing they were the only lights for miles. Even the stars were covered with cloud tonight.

She paused a few moments at the window and gazed at the candy cane lights as they raced up Stirling's verandah posts. Balanced on the roof, Santa still seemed like he was en route for the chimney, a big sack of toys over his shoulder. And down near the gate, the brilliantly lit lettering proclaiming: POLLY'S PLAINS. Suddenly it all went black.

She snapped her eyes back to Stirling's house and just caught the last light twirl up the verandah pole before his home shrank into darkness.

Marble Man must have just got back from releasing the possum. He was probably heading to bed and thus the light show was over for another night. A weird feeling curled around Jaime's consciousness. Something akin to regret.

Regret for what? The possum? But he was probably in a much happier place, chewing leaves or whatever he did. No, it wasn't the native wildlife making her uneasy.

What was it?

It wasn't until she lay down on the couch, pulled a spare blanket up and over herself and stared into the dark for some time that she put her finger on it.

She missed seeing the lights.

The phone rang as Jaime was trawling the internet again. Not one job she was interested in was popping up, which was hardly surprising since Christmas was only five days away. But she wasn't going to think about that.

‘Jaime Josephina? It's Blanche.'

Jaime wilted. Hell, no, not her mother.

‘Hi, Mum. How are you?'

‘We're at the shack …'

The place where the newly married couple communed with nature.

‘Dave's doing lots of hunting with his gun club mates …'

A bunch of rednecks as far as Jaime was concerned.

‘And I'm learning macramé …'

Her mother had returned to the seventies.

‘It's rather fascinating. I'm making you an orange owl for Christmas.'

Crap.

Jaime plastered a smile on her face, remembering the old customer service trick: if you were smiling it came across to the customer, even if you couldn't see each other – ‘That's nice, Mum.' – regardless of the fact one might want to kill the other.

‘I just wanted to make entirely certain you didn't want to come down here for Christmas. There's a ferry across, you know.'

Dave had taken her mother to an island for the festive season. He owned a share of a hut there. A deer hunter's hut. There was no way she was going down there to eat Bambi and watch those two lovebirds decked out in camo gear canoodle on the front porch. ‘I told you I'm not doing Christmas this year, Mum.'

‘Oh, don't be ridiculous, Jaime J. You can't
not
do Christmas. You used to
love
the whole Santa thing with your father. Why I remember when–'

‘I don't need you to remind me about my father,' interrupted Jaime in a choked voice. This was all pretty rich coming from the woman who had remarried before her previous husband was cold in the grave. But then, Blanche didn't have the nickname Carte Blanche bestowed on her for nothing. It was all in or all out with her mother.

‘You really have to move on, Jaime.'

‘That's obviously easy for you to do. It's harder for me.'

‘You don't understand, Jaime. I loved your father but I was lonely.'

Not good enough, Mother, thought Jaime. I'm lonely too, but that doesn't mean I'm going to marry the first man who comes along. Time to change the subject.

Again she interrupted Blanche, ‘Anyhow, I'm not doing whole Santa thing this year. I told you that. Plus, they don't
do
Christmas up here at Burdekin's Gap.'
You big fat liar, Hanrahan.

‘They don't?'

‘Nope, and I like it like that.'

‘But you're there all on your own.'

‘No I'm not. There's a stockman called Stirling here, and a few others around. Now, Mum, I really have to be going. Things to do, places to be. It's busy up here.'
Double big fat liar, Jaime Josephina!

‘Well if you're sure.'

‘I'm sure. And don't worry. I'll be fine.' Jaime shoved the phone receiver down near her feet, stomped around a bit on the polished boards, put the phone back up to her ear and said, ‘Someone's coming, Mum. Got to go. Love you!'

She gently pressed the end-call button on the handheld.

 

After lying to her mother, the fright she got when a voice yelled ‘Hello!' from the lounge doorway probably served her right.

It was Stirling, looking like a dreamboat in a crisp blue-and-white striped R.M. Williams shirt tucked neatly into clean denim jeans. The belt around his waist was decorated with silver decals and the buckle was pure country – bull horns picked out in black. She hoped her mouth wasn't open in delight because it wouldn't be the best of looks. Not by a long shot.

He leant against the doorjamb. ‘I'm heading down to Lake Grace. You want to come?'

Jaime closed her eyes for a second, trying to force aside her inappropriate thoughts at his use of ‘come'. When she opened them again, Stirling was still there, with that little quirk to his lips.

‘I'd love to come.'
ARGH! Change your terminology, Hanrahan!
‘What I mean is, yes, that would be great.'

‘You might want to change.'

Jaime looked down and realised she was still in S's dressing gown. ‘Um … right. I'll be five minutes.'

‘You can have longer. I just want to make sure the Christmas lights here on the homestead work in case I need to get some more globes. Because they stay up all year round, they can be a bit dicky. You never know, you might want to turn them on.'

Yeah, right. She might have missed seeing them last night, but that was only because she was frazzled and fragile after the possum episode.

‘The switch is near the outside lights at the back door.' Stirling gave a wry smirk. ‘Just in case you want to use them.'

Like, whatever.

He made to move out the door. ‘I've still got to hitch up the trailer with the Suzuki on it. I borrowed Ryan's LandCruiser so we can tow it down to the mechanics' workshop. See you in ten.'

Jaime instantly forgot about the damn lights and nodded guiltily. The Suzuki. She'd forgotten she'd killed it.

 

Ryan's LandCruiser was a hell of a lot more comfortable than either Valerie's ute or Stirling's motorbike. The silence in the cab was pleasant rather than tense. The sun was beaming through the windows. The road winding down through the hills to Lake Grace was as pretty as any postcard she'd ever seen. Jaime leant back into the seat to enjoy the ride.

The last time she'd been this way was on the back of Stirling's motorbike, in the half light, so she hadn't been able to take in the beauty of the finer details of the bush surrounding her. This time, her concentration didn't waver from the scenes running past her window like a film from a
National Geographic
website.

At intervals, kangaroos and wallabies bounded in the scrub, birds of incredible colours and all shapes and sizes dipped and dived through the air. Wildflowers bloomed in scattered clumps and she was sure she'd seen an echidna back closer to Burdekin's Gap, waddling its way off the edge of the road to safety.

It was all good food for her soul. She'd loved the bush as a kid. Well, the little bit of scrub she and her dad had found along the creeks closer to their suburban home. Fishing, bird watching, hiking – just checking out the lay of the land. The areas they discovered were by no means as vast as the mountainous and scrubby country which
stretched out before her, but the little pockets of parkland she and her dad found gave a tiny taste of the bush and the contentment that could come from being a part of it.

‘I'll drop the trailer and ute off at the garage. It's on the way into town. Then we'll head down the street.' Stirling's voice broke into her reminiscing. ‘I'm not due to collect the pup until one o'clock, so we've got some time to fill.'

Pup? ‘We're picking up a puppy?' Jaime knew her voice had risen to a high squeak, but she couldn't help it. ‘I've always wanted a puppy!'

Stirling gave a small grimace. ‘So has Valerie.'

Bloody St Valerie. Of course. ‘Oh, it's for Valerie, is it? How nice.' Her tone was verging on sardonic.

Stirling cast her a quizzical glance. ‘Well, actually no, he's for me. I need to train another dog while I've still got Buster. Valerie wasn't against the idea, which was good.'

Jaime sank into the seat. She could feel a blush rising up her neck. She'd got this all wrong and now he was thinking she was a jealous cow. Which, of course, she was.

‘Lovely,' she said lamely and looked out the window, feigning intense interest in a billboard they were passing. ‘TAKE FIVE, DON'T SLEEP AND DRIVE.' That'd be good. Turn back the clock and pretend she was still in bed. At least there she couldn't make a complete dick of herself.

Then she remembered the possum and sighed.

 

They dropped off the Suzuki and left with the reassuring words of the mechanic – ‘She'll be right mate, I'll fix it' – ringing in their ears. Next stop was the main street. She'd decided on the drive down that she should probably buy her mother something.
A
gift
not a Christmas present. A little trinket that said, ‘I'm sorry I'm a pain in the butt but I still love you.'

She glanced around the street. The Stock and Station Agency, with its plethora of boots, coats and Akubras in the window, was a definite no-go. Her mother wasn't the type to be taking to
The Man From Snowy River
look. The supermarket was an outside chance, the corner café with its window of homemade knitted goods on display a possibility (the macramé owl came to mind – ugh!). Of the lot, the chemist looked the most promising. There was a footbath in the window, and her mother could learn to de-stress a bit.

‘I'll just head on round to the grain store and meet you back here in half an hour,' said Stirling as he pulled up to let her out. ‘You might want to get some Dine from the supermarket too. That's if you still want to suck up to Dodge after the possum debacle.' He grinned and drove off.

Bloody smartarse.

Jaime flung back her shoulders, trying to release the tension she could feel from all her adventures, and strode off in the direction of the chemist. Maybe
she
might use the footbath instead.

 

It took her all of twenty minutes to buy Blanche's gift (no thank you, she didn't want it wrapped in Christmas paper!), collect a few groceries (including cream and strawberries for the damn sponges), purchase the cat food and then wander the rest of the street. There wasn't much to Lake Grace.

She ended up in front of the window of the Stock and Station Agency, gazing at the manly goods on display. A Montana Silversmith's buckle caught her eye. It was
an oval shape, with filigree vines and swirls and was framed with a polished silver rope trim. Simple but classy.

Instinct sent her into the store. An unconscious urge made her purchase the buckle. What she was going to do with it she wasn't sure. It somehow reminded her of her father.

She tucked it into her back pocket and walked out the door.