Outback Hearts (Beyond Reality Book 1)

by Stoker, Susan

  Their thirty minutes to pack was up and they all piled back on the bus. The ride to the ranch was about forty-five minutes long. Sam had no idea where they were going, all she knew was that it was dusty and they seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Finally, they saw a line of trees in the distance and buildings slowly began to take shape. They pulled into a large circle driveway in front of one of the most beautiful houses Sam had ever seen. It was huge. And was three stories high with a beautiful front porch. There were rocking chairs set out on the porch and dogs running around the yard and property. It was wonderful, beautiful, and Sam couldn’t wait to get out and meet whoever was lucky enough to live in such a wonderful place.

  The women filed out of the bus and were instructed to stand in their customary two lines. Robert stood in his usual spot and began talking.

  “Welcome to the Choxie Station. There are over eight hundred acres on the property and you’ll begin working right away. There are many different types of chores, and we’ll draw from a hat to see which you’ll be doing. We will choose different jobs for each of you in the morning. Are there any questions before we begin?”

  Ashley raised her hand and asked, “Will Al be joining us?”

  The question was one that all the women really wanted to know the answer to. They wanted to know if he’d be there to watch their supreme efforts on their chores. They wanted to know what kind of effort they’d have to put forth. If he was there, they’d try harder, if not, then they’d get by with the minimum effort they could.

  “Al will be joining you later tonight. He’ll spend time doing each of the chores with you tomorrow. The chores you’ll be assisting with are helping in the kitchen, working with the maids, mucking out the stalls, riding the fence line, feeding the animals, and weeding the garden.”

  There was complete silence from the women. Sam wanted to laugh. It was too perfect. She didn’t really want to do any of those jobs, but she knew she was in far better shape to do them than the other spoiled contestants. She cleaned her own house, fed her three dogs twice a day every day, cooked her own meals…she knew most of the other women probably had hired help to do all those things, or at least relied on someone else to help them. She looked around and saw the shock on their faces. She again had to stifle a giggle.

  They started to draw jobs from the hat one by one. Ashley and Kathi pulled kitchen duty first. Missy, Brandi, and Katie got maid duty. Cindee, Sammi, and Amy were going to be mucking out the stalls. Nikki and Lori were going to be riding the fence lines. Kiki and Courtnee would be feeding the animals, while Jennie and Candi would be weeding the huge garden out back.

  Sam figured she’d get the “poop” job…with three dogs at home it seemed as if she was constantly picking up poo at home, so why shouldn’t she do it when she was on vacation too? It was actually pretty funny. She figured she could’ve gotten stuck with worse people than Amy and Cindee to work with as well.

  The women all went off to do their respective chores. They hadn’t seen Al yet, and they weren’t sure when he would show up and who he would “help” first. Sammi, Cindee, and Amy were brought into a huge barn. There were stalls alongside stalls alongside stalls. No wonder there were three of them assigned to this chore. Cindee and Amy immediately scrunched up their noses at the pungent smell emanating from the stalls. It is a bit strong. Sam thought. But what did I expect, it’s a barn!

  They were handed long pitchforks by one of the ranch hands. He told them that in Australia, typically the male employees were called jackeroos and the females jilleroos. He gave them a quick lesson on how to shovel the horse droppings out of the stalls and into a large bin. Most of the horses were out in the pasture so they’d have the place mostly to themselves. They were given gloves—which of course were too big for them—and set to work. Sam and Amy started on one side of the barn and Cindee started on the other.

  The time went by pretty fast for Sam. The job was backbreaking, but not hard. All three of the women were sweating pretty hard. The barn was insulated, but the heat of the day combined with the hard shoveling was no match for the ceiling fans lazily circling above their heads. After about three hours the girls were told they were done for the day.

  “Good job, ladies, I’m impressed,” a jackeroo named Henry told them. “I didn’t expect you’d get as much done as you did. Thank you.”

  It was a job well done if Sam did say so herself. Together they’d mucked out all the stalls and had gotten a good start on spreading new hay as well. It wasn’t perfect, they’d taken quite a few breaks to rest, but they’d done it. Henry told them they were to meet back out at the front of the house where they’d assembled when they’d first arrived. They trudged out front and saw the other women were slowly gathering. The women who were working in the house didn’t look too much the worse for wear, but the women who worked outside in the sun looked very bedraggled.

  Once everyone had assembled, Robert spoke, “Hopefully you enjoyed your first few hours here at Choxie Station. I think we’d all enjoy hearing about how your day went. I’d like for each group to come up and talk about how the job they did today and anything else interesting that happened. And since none of you got to work with Al today, he’d like to hear how things went as well.”

  Alex strode out of the house and stood next to Robert.

  “This should be interesting,” Sam muttered under her breath.

  First up was the garden crew. Jennie and Candi walked up to join Robert and Al. Both were a bit sunburned, but not too bad considering they were pretty tan to begin with.

  Jennie started discussing how their day went. “Well, the garden is huge. There are flowers as well as vegetables. We were told what we should be looking for to pull, but it was a bit difficult since neither of us has really worked in a garden before. I guess we kept pulling the wrong thing. Candi actually pulled up something that she thought was a weed, but it turned out to be a vegetable!” At that, Jennie giggled.

  Candi interrupted, “Yeah, well, what about when you sat on a bunch of flowers to get a better grip on the weed that you were trying to pull?!?”

  It seemed as if the light humor of the moment was gone. The competition was on. Candi and Jennie were not looking happy and were starting to glare at each other.

  Alex broke the tension and said, “Did you enjoy your afternoon? Did you learn anything today?”

  Jennie spoke up before Candi could. “Well, I wouldn’t say it was fun, and I guess I learned that it’s hard work and if you’re going to have a big garden it’d be best to make sure you hire someone to pull weeds!” She giggled again, and Sam couldn’t help but roll her eyes. She looked at Al to see what he thought about what Jennie said, but his face was blank and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

  Next up was Nikki and Lori who talked about their “fence riding” experience. It didn’t sound like they got very far. Neither had even been around horses before and so they were nervous and spent a lot of time walking the horses instead of riding them because of their inexperience and fright around the horses. They watched a few jackeroos check the fences and claimed they couldn’t help because the gloves didn’t fit them and it might mess up their manicures.

  Next it was Sam, Cindee, and Amy’s turn. Cindee spoke for them all and talked about how the barn was very smelly and hot and definitely not something she wanted to do. She even complained a bit about how they didn’t even get to meet the horses, only dealt with their droppings! Sam couldn’t stand it anymore. It seemed like the entire session was becoming one big complaint after another.

  “It wasn’t too bad,” Sam piped up, interrupting Cindee’s complaints. “Yes, it was hot, and yes it was definitely smelly, but it felt good to be able to help the animals by making sure they’d have a clean bed when they came home for the night.” Sam looked at the faces of the women in front of her. Some looked bored, others looked indifferent, but a few looked at her with daggers in their eyes. Sam didn’t know why, didn’t know what she said that was so bad, but
then she figured that the ones who were glaring at her didn’t like her anyway, so no matter what she said they’d still probably be glaring at her.

  Missy, Brandi, and Katie were up next discussing the chores they had to do around the house. Missy was appalled that she had to clean toilets. She said it was degrading and “icky.” It didn’t sound like the things they had to do were too bad. And their description of the house was amazing. Sam wished she was able to walk around and examine the house. It was fascinating from the outside. She just knew it’d be just as beautiful inside.

  Ashley and Kathi discussed the kitchen duties. They helped with the afternoon meal for the employees. Apparently Kathi dropped and broke a platter, but the head cook assured her that it was okay. They claimed to have washed “thousands” of dishes—Ashley’s words—and talked about how they had to mop the floor twice.

  Last to go was Kiki and Courtnee whose job it was to feed the various animals around the farm. They gushed on and on for about twenty minutes about how cute all the animals were. They made it sound like they were angels who were feeding starving animals. Sam noticed they didn’t talk much about feeding the pigs. Sam had seen pigs being fed before, it wasn’t a pretty sight.

  Finally, they’d all told their stories and everyone got to know a bit about what each of the jobs entailed. They were tired and smelly and definitely ready to go inside and have a good meal, a shower, and hopefully visit more with Al. Robert and Eddie, as usual, had other plans for them.

  “Now that you’ve all finished your chores today you can go and find a place to sleep in the bunkhouse.” He pointed behind them toward the barn where off to the side there was a long rectangle shaped building. “There you will find your cots for the night as well as the kitchen where you’ll need to fix your own food for the night. I wouldn’t stay up too late, tomorrow will come soon enough.”

  Many of the women were flabbergasted. They weren’t going to be allowed to sleep in the house tonight? What was this? How would Al get to know them and how would they get to know him better if they were stuck in the bunkhouse with each other? As it usually happens when women get together in tight spaces for too long of a time, they were starting to grate on each other’s nerves. Cliques were definitely forming. It was as if the battle lines had been drawn. They were like wild dogs circling their prey—which was Al. If they didn’t get first “crack” at him, then they’d fight for what they believed was “theirs.”

  Sam was tired of the “game” already. It wasn’t the work she was doing, it was the fact that she was expected to be just as eager to discuss Al at all times and that she was expected to fight for him and to do anything to “get” him. It just wasn’t her style at all. She figured if a guy was going to like her, he was going to like her as she was. She shouldn’t have to fight for a guy. She believed if a guy was having a hard time choosing between her and another woman, then he could have the other woman.

  She wanted a man who would walk into a room and the first thing he’d do would be to seek her out. Who’d walk into a room and have eyes only for her. She wanted a man who she wouldn’t have to worry about where he was, if he came home from work late and who he was with. Trust. She wanted complete trust in a partner. She knew she wasn’t as pretty as the women she was surrounded by. She also knew that most likely she wouldn’t make it past the next few eliminations. She had high self-esteem, but it was being battered a bit constantly being around the models as she was.

  Sam followed the other women to the bunkhouse where their suitcases had been dropped off earlier in the day. There were seven bunk beds set up around the small room, with a small bathroom and a kitchen. Missy immediately tried to take charge.

  “Who’s going to cook? It looks like we have food here,” she said, looking at the other women expectantly. “Although it looks like we only have the fixings for pasta…anyone want that?” Of course, most of the women were horrified at the thought of eating all those carbs and ruining their diets. Sam was hungry. She’d spent most of the day working hard, she loved pasta, and she figured that if she was going to eat she’d better volunteer to cook. So she started getting out pots and ingredients to make the meal.

  Chapter Twelve

  “So what did you think of them?” Alex asked his Aunt Nancy. Nancy and her husband owned Choxie Station. Nancy had married an Australian and raised her children, Alex’s cousins, there on the station. They were now all gone, the kids moved away and her husband passed away a few years ago. Eddie figured this was a great opportunity to shake up the “game” a bit. It was going to be Nancy’s job to tell the producers who the next woman would be to leave. She was to get to know as many of the women as she could. She’d watch the tapes of the women doing their chores with Alex. She would also meet the women who were working in the house in person. She wouldn’t get to meet them all in person, but she’d get to meet most of them.

  “Where in the world did they find these women?” Nancy asked Alex. “They have no clue. They all look like Barbie dolls.”

  Alex agreed, “I thought the same thing. I haven’t gotten to know them all very well yet, but they seem to be nice.”

  “Nice?” Nancy asked incredulously. “That isn’t a word I’d have imagined you’d use when discussing beautiful women!” They both laughed and settled down to watch the tapes of the day.

  Two hours later, the duo had enough. It was obvious that the women were out of their element. Most tried to make the best out of a bad situation, but it was clear that some of them just weren’t trying. The three most obvious were Katie, Nikki, and Candi. They did everything they could do to get out of work and to let others do most of it.

  “Come on Alex,” Nancy said. “Let’s get some chow and hit the sack. Five am is going to come up pretty fast for our city-slickers!”

  At exactly five in the morning, the women were awakened by a loud clanging. It was one of the jackaroos standing outside the bunk house, banging against a metal trash can.

  “Time to get up, ladies, you have twenty minutes before you need to be up in the clearing for breakfast and then for your assignments for the day.”

  Sam had never heard such complaining and moaning in all her life. She was pretty sore, but she couldn’t believe how the others were carrying on. You’d think they’d spent yesterday being tortured or something. Sam would kill for a shower, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen with all the other women also clamoring for the use of the shower. Some were showering together at the same time. There was no way Sam was going to stand next to one of the other women without any clothes on. That would be too much even for her ego.

  They all trudged back to the clearing. Robert was there looking as clean cut and refreshed as ever. It was actually pretty annoying. They all sat down on benches that were put out for them as the kitchen staff brought out their breakfast. There was food piled up. It looked like they’d gone all out. There were eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, muffins, doughnuts, and even breakfast burritos. Sam laughed to herself, there was no way that some of those women would touch some of that food, but Sam was in heaven. She was happy she didn’t have to make her own breakfast this morning. She took a bit of everything, not knowing when they’d have the chance to eat again. Besides, she knew it would give her a bit of energy for the day’s activities.

  When everyone finished eating, they all gathered in their respective places again and Robert began a speech about hard work and how they would be switching around jobs for the day. Al would be making the rounds and visiting each work team as they were doing their chores to see how they were getting along. Robert started pulling names out of the hat again.

  Jennie and Kiki were going to work in the kitchen. Nikki, Cindee, and Candi would be working with the maids. Brandi and Ashley would be riding the fence line. Amy and Kathi would be feeding the animals. Lori and Katie would be weeding, and Courtnee, Missy, and Sam would be mucking out the stalls.

  Sam couldn’t believe she got the same job as she had the day before It wasn’t
fair, but it wasn’t like any of the other jobs were really all that good either. As far as things went, she supposed it could be worse, but she wasn’t happy with the fact that she’d have to work with Courtnee and Missy for the day. She knew neither of them liked her, so she figured it’d be a very long morning. No one seemed to notice or care that she’d done the same job the day before. Sam decided that if no one else was going to say anything, neither would she. It wasn’t that big of a deal. As much as she wanted to get into the house and see if it was as beautiful on the inside as it was on the outside, she wasn’t going to make someone switch with her. Mucking the stalls wasn’t exactly a job that someone would want to switch her for anyway. She’d have loved to have spent time with the animals, but she also knew there was no way in hell that Kathi or Amy would switch with her. She couldn’t blame them either.

  They all left to attend to their respective jobs. As Sam, Courtnee, and Missy arrived at the barn they saw Al was already there. It looked like he’d be starting his day with them. Courtnee and Missy were beyond excited. They were glad they’d get to see him before they got all sweaty and smelly.

  “Mornin’, ladies,” Al said with a drawl.

  “Hi”, “Hello”, “Hey,” they said in unison.

  Courtnee sidled up to Al and asked, “Are you going to show us how to do this?”

  Alex laughed and said, “Nope, that’s Henry’s job…Henry?”

  With that, Henry came over from the stall he’d been working in. Noticing Sam, he frowned at her a bit and at her small shake of the head, he looked away and started explaining the best way to handle the pitchfork and the technique for throwing poo out of the stalls. When he was done with his explanations each of them grabbed a pitchfork and started working.