Her Outback Cowboy (Prickle Creek)

by Annie Seaton

  Garth pushed himself away from the tree trunk and came across to them. “Feel free to come to my place. Remember, I said you can use my connection, and the offer to cook the yabbies is still open, too.”

  Lucy nodded. “Thank you and yes to both. Much appreciated.” She was surprised to hear her voice so calm. The feel of Garth’s skin and muscles was burning her fingertips, and her legs were like jelly. The warm and earthy smell of him wafted over as he moved closer, and she looked up. His T-shirt was now damp with perspiration, despite the deepening dusk, and she stared at him, unable to help herself. The shadow of stubble along his jawline and the lock of hair that fell across his brow conspired to keep her eyes fixed on him. He was too good-looking for her peace of mind.

  “We’ve got some yabbies to cook up. Would you like to stay and have some with us?”

  Garth glanced across at Seb, and she wondered if she was the only one to hear the reluctance in his invitation.

  To Lucy’s relief, Seb shook his head and turned towards the ute. “Thanks, but no. Gran wants Liam and me to look at the cattle records with her again tonight, while the numbers are fresh in our minds.” He glanced back at Lucy and grimaced. “She’s coming around slowly, but I’ll warn you, she wasn’t too impressed to hear why I had to come out here and meet you.”

  Garth gave a rueful grin. “And I’ll have dropped even lower in her opinion.”

  “No, Garth. She’s going to apologise to you. It didn’t take long for her to see that you were right about Brian.” He opened the ute door and placed his camera carefully on the passenger seat. “So you don’t want a lift back, Luce?”

  “No, but I won’t be long.”

  She stood close to Garth as Seb drove off. Once the noise of the motor receded, all was quiet, and she kicked nervously at the dust with her boot. There was a tension between them that had begun as she was touching his skin, and she knew it wouldn’t take much for it to burst into flame—on her side, anyway.

  “Speaking of flame,” she said, and then stopped as a wave of heat flamed her face when she realised she’d put her thoughts into words. “I mean, do you want me to gather some sticks to start the fire?”

  When Garth spread the old yellow-and-black-chequered picnic blanket on the red dirt, Lucy looked at him from beneath lowered lashes. She could have sworn it was the same one he’d had in his old ute when they’d swum at the dam the summer before he’d left Spring Downs. She’d spent quite a few afternoons lying on that rug. After his year twelve exams were over, on that glorious summer holiday before Garth had left town, she’d taken every opportunity to spend nights out at Prickle Creek Farm with Gran and Pop. Mum and Dad had teased her; they’d known full well that the attraction was not the farm or her grandparents. It had been an idyllic summer; she and Garth had swum and hiked and fished for yabbies. They’d lain on the old chequered blanket looking at the brilliant stars in the clear night sky and sharing their dreams. They’d tentatively explored each other’s bodies and slept under the moon and stars.

  The water in the large battered pot was just short of coming to the boil on the crackling flames. Lucy sat and stared into the yellow, gold, and blue fire, lost in her memories while Garth opened the lid on the bucket and when the bubbles began to rise, he carefully dropped the yabbies in the water. She grinned and glanced down at her watch. It had always been her job to time the cooking.

  “Three minutes, I know.” She nodded as Garth held up three fingers. She stood in front of the fire watching the pot swing on the tripod.

  How did I let those memories go? Of the wonderful times they’d spent together? It was as though living in the city had pulled a curtain over that part of her life. She hadn’t forgotten those happy weeks; it was just that when Mum and Dad had died, she’d pushed anything to do with Spring Downs and Prickle Creek Farm into a part of her brain that she never ventured into.

  Now, sitting out here in the warm night, staring into the flames, the years disappeared and the curtain shifted a little. She explored the memories. It was like probing a sore tooth. Test and pull back, until you knew it wasn’t going to hurt anymore. Garth must have sensed her introspection. He pottered around quietly, and she looked at him gratefully when he lifted two camp chairs and a small fold-up table from the back of the ute.

  “I remembered how much you hated the cat’s head prickles,” he said with a smile.

  Nostalgia flooded through Lucy. How could she have walked away and never called him? Not once had she contacted Garth after she’d moved to Sydney and started her new life. He’d been relegated to the place where she’d grown up, the place she’d kidded herself she hated.

  “One minute to go.” She looked at her watch as she sat down in the comfortable chair. Garth lifted an esky from the ute, and she smiled again as he lifted out a bottle of tomato sauce and a jar of homemade mayonnaise and put them on the table. He reached in again and pulled out a bottle of wine and two glasses.

  “You did have this all planned, didn’t you? Just as well we caught some yabbies.” Lucy took the glass of wine Garth poured and held out to her. She sat back and sipped as he lifted the pot from the fire with a pair of strong pliers, and tipped the water down the hill. He sat the now-red yabbies on an enamel plate on the table to cool before pulling the other chair over beside hers.

  The fire crackled and hissed, and Lucy stared into the flames, searching for the right words. Finally she turned to him. He was leaning back with his head resting on the high soft back of the chair, his eyes closed. His profile was sharply defined against the night sky, and a rush of feeling filled Lucy.

  “I’m sorry I lost touch with you,” she said softly. “Everything changed after the accident. I’d only been at uni a few weeks when Mum and her sisters left for that trip.” He turned and looked at her without speaking. “I guess after it happened I just wanted to cut all ties with the place.”

  “No need to explain, Luce. I was just as slack. I could have called you.” He turned back to the fire and leaned forward. “I was in Western Australia. I qualified as an engineer, and I worked in the mines over there. I’ve only been back on the farm six months.”

  Lucy’s eyes widened, and she shook her head. “I had no idea you worked in the mines.”

  As she watched, Garth’s expression closed. “You thought I was just a cow cocky?”

  “No. To be honest, I didn’t let myself think about you at all, Garth.”

  “I’m sorry. Dad was really unhappy when I said I was finished with uni and told him I was going out to the mines. I guess I’m still a bit sensitive.”

  “That’s okay. We all carry stuff from our families.” Lucy looked down as he reached for her hand. “But now that we’ve reconnected, I hope we don’t lose touch again.”

  “We’ll make sure we don’t.” Garth held on to her hand as they sat quietly staring into the flames.

  Finally he broke the silence. “So tell me, what’s going on with your grandparents? How come you’re all home? Is everything okay?”

  “I don’t know.” Lucy shook her head. “I mean, yes, apart from getting old, everything is fine with them. I just don’t know if I’m okay with the way things are going.”

  Garth’s glance was curious, and she squeezed his hand before she let go and reached for her wine.

  “We’re all staying here—home—for a few months. To learn about the property and to take it over, eventually.”

  She saw the glint of his teeth in the firelight as he grinned. “That’s fantastic. You’ll be around for—how long?”

  “Three months. We’re taking it in turns. Liam and I are first.” She spoke slowly as doubt assailed her.

  “So what’s wrong?” Garth picked up on her hesitation. “You don’t sound very keen.”

  “I think I only agreed to it because the others were so determined to listen to Gran. I mean, I don’t want Gran and Pop to sell the place, but I’m not sure it’s what I want.” She waved a hand around at the land surrounding them. “You remember.
I hate all this stuff. The heat, the smells, the dust…”

  “That’s not the Lucy I remember.” His voice was soft and caressing, and she hardened her tone.

  “It’s the new Lucy after I went to Sydney…after I left the district. Really, there was nothing I liked about being out here on the farm when we came out from town.”

  “Nothing?” There was a cheeky tone in Garth’s voice.

  “Well, maybe some of it was okay.” She looked across at him and then put her hand to her mouth. “Oh no. I totally forgot that you said you had made an offer for the place. You probably don’t want us out here, anyway.”

  Garth pushed himself up from the chair and crouched in front of her, taking her hands in his. The moon was high in the velvet sky, and the pale light glinted off his dark hair. She stared at him, and his voice was full of passion as he held her gaze.

  “No, don’t ever think that. Yes, I could expand my land holdings, but I just didn’t want to see the farm go to one of those big foreign investors. That’s why I made the offer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Half of the Pilliga is quietly being bought up. There’s coal-seam gas exploration happening, and these companies see a huge profit in owning land out here.”

  “But they can’t do that.” Lucy was filled with dismay. “You mean put mines like there are all over the Hunter Valley out here in the Pilliga?”

  “Not quite open-cut mines here, but it will still have a dreadful effect on the water table. But there is talk of open-cut mines out on the Breeza Plains. I’ve joined a farmers’ alliance group, and some of the proposals would make your hair curl.” He shook his head. “And it’s all kept very quiet until it’s too late to do anything. I’ll get Liam and Seb on board, too. I’m sure they haven’t heard about it. It’s all very hush-hush.”

  “That’s dreadful.” Lucy squeezed his hands. “But how could you afford to buy a property the size of ours?”

  “I’ve already got the approval from the bank, but if the place is staying in your family, that’s fine. I really have enough on my plate, and I don’t want to have to hire anyone to help out. I’ve got a couple of young guys who come out after school and on weekends, and that’s all I need with my place.”

  “You do love it here, don’t you?”

  “It’s my life,” he said. “I missed it so much when I was over in the west.” He grinned at her as he stood and pulled her to her feet. “There’s no place like home, Dorothy. Come on, your yabbie feast awaits.”

  He brushed a light kiss on her lips and dropped his hands to her hips. He held her gently, and Lucy stared up at him as he lifted his head. Garth smiled at her, and desire quivered in her stomach. He dropped his head again, and this time her lips clung to his until he moved back and turned his attention to the now-cool yabbies. Lucy put her hands to her lips. She couldn’t imagine Garth anywhere but here.

  The question was, where was home for her?

  Chapter Twelve

  The outside security light bathed the new farmhouse and the work shed in bright white light as Garth turned the ute into the parking bay close to the house gate.

  “You built the new house?” Lucy had asked as they drove past the old farmhouse. They’d called at Prickle Creek Farm on the way home and picked up her laptop and the memory card from Seb’s camera. Garth had waited in the ute while Lucy had run inside.

  “Yep. Wanted a place of my own. Made it feel as though it was mine and I wasn’t just back where I grew up.” He shrugged. “I know it sounds silly, but I’m going to make my life here, and I wanted it to be mine. You know, not feel like a kid playing on Mum and Dad’s farm? And the harvesters bunk down in the old house. And I’m thinking about doing it up a bit and having farm stays there for city kids who don’t get a chance for a holiday.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got some great plans for the place.” Lucy looked at him with her head tilted to the side. “You’ll be putting a lot of your time and money into the farm.”

  Garth sensed the question in her words. He hated sounding like he was building himself up, but he wanted Lucy to know he was comfortable—more than comfortable. “I did okay over in the west. I worked hard for three years. Instead of flying back home for the two weeks after my two-week shift in the mine, I worked on a wheat farm over there. Set me up to buy the olds’ place and left me some spare cash to try some new things.” He didn’t mention his shrewd investments. It sounded enough like bragging as it was.

  The dogs set up a cacophony of barking in the yard and he turned to them, relieved to stop talking about himself.

  “Quiet,” he yelled, and the three dogs slunk off to their kennels, surprised by the unfamiliar reprimand.

  Garth held out his hand for Lucy to pass her computer to him before she stepped down from the high vehicle. She was a petite woman, and a surge of longing filled him. Damn shame she was so keen on going back to the city. He blocked the picture in his mind of her living here. Not going to happen.

  He held open the gate for her, and she walked into the yard and looked around. A couple of pots filled with straggly dead plants leaned against the unpainted timber fence.

  “Bit different from your gran’s beautiful garden.” Garth shrugged. “As much as I’d like to get it nice, there’s not enough time in a day for me to look after the whole farm, let alone the garden.”

  “Are you sure you’ve got time for me to be here tonight?”

  “Of course. I’ll get you set up, and I can do some paperwork while you do whatever you have to do. That’s one thing I made sure I had, a fast internet connection. My router is hardwired into an antenna on the roof. It picks up the satellite connection twenty-four-seven.”

  He chuckled at the look on Lucy’s face. “What do we have here? A non-techno person?”

  “My nickname at work is Techno-Gumby,” she said with a smile. “I can use the graphics and word processing software and send an email, but that’s about it. I can do what I need to do, but I don’t understand how it works.” She put one hand on her hip and waved the other in the air. “It’s because I am a creative person. I have an aura where computers are concerned. And it’s not a productive one.”

  She giggled in a self-deprecating way, and Garth smiled along with her. She was so cute and quirky. More and more of the Lucy he remembered from school days was coming back.

  “Remember Mrs Johnson, the art teacher?” he said. “You were the class pet, and she encouraged you when you decided you weren’t going to wear the school uniform anymore. I can still remember the look on the headmaster’s face when you came to school wearing two different coloured stockings and your Doc Martens and that short little pink skirt. I thought he was going to have a stroke on the spot. His face turned the same colour as your boots.”

  “I’d forgotten that.” Her smile was even wider now. “And you know what? I’ve still got those purple Doc Martens. As well as the new purple Blundstones I had on the other day.”

  “You love your purple, don’t you?” He shot her an affectionate look as they walked through the kitchen to the adjacent open-plan study where Garth had set up his desk. A surge of pride ran through him as Lucy cast an approving eye over the space.

  “Very nice. Who designed the house? It’s so unusual.”

  “I had a mate over in WA who worked at the mine with me. He was an architect doing some design work. I told him what I was planning, and we drew it up between shifts. It’s designed to be naturally temperature-controlled.”

  Lucy’s eyes tracked along the slope of the ceiling to the storage loft above the laundry. “I love it. It’s almost Japanese, with all the screens.”

  “Still a bit bare, but I’ll get there.”

  “In your spare time,” she said with another laugh.

  “That’s about right.” He cleared a space on the desk and pointed to the outlet above the desk. “You get yourself set up, and I’ll put some coffee on.”

  He held the chair out for her, and Lucy pulled the small
computer from her bag and sat down. “Coffee will be great. I am a bit sleepy, and I have a lot of work to do. Gran’s kept me busy, but you know—I’ve enjoyed being with her and Jemmy in the kitchen.” Her smile was sweet, and Garth caught his breath as she looked up at him. “And thanks so much for letting me use your connection. I really do appreciate it.”

  “Truth be known, I appreciate the company. Gets a bit quiet here at night.” He laughed as the dogs started barking outside, as if on cue. “Apart from the dogs, that is.”

  “Another visitor?” she asked.

  “No, it’ll be kangaroos. They come in about this time every night and feed on the new growth where I’m trying to get the lawn growing.” He spread his palms open and grimaced. “Between the dogs and the roos, I think I’m going to be living on red dust for a while.”

  “You need Gran over here with her magic touch.” Her expression was shy as she returned his gaze. “Or if you would like, I can repay you for using your connection and come over and help out with the garden.”

  Satisfaction spread thought Garth. “I’ll take you up on that.” He held out his hand and took hers. “That’s a deal.”

  He had to fight the urge to punch the air with delight as he walked over to the kitchen.

  …

  “Done.” Lucy stretched her arms into the air and rolled her neck in a circle as the last file whizzed its magical way to Sydney by email. Seb had done an amazing job with the photos of Garth, and she’d worked on the best six and tweaked them before sending them off to the boss with the initial copy she’d written. Fingers crossed that Caleb loved it as much as she did. It might soften him up for when she told him she’d be working from six hundred kilometres away.

  “I think we’ve got a winner of a campaign coming together here.” She turned to the other side of the desk where Garth had been working behind her, but the chair was empty. She’d been so focused on her work, she hadn’t even heard him refill her coffee mug. Every time she’d picked it up, it had been full and piping hot. She pushed the chair back carefully, aware of scratching the polished timber floor, but the chair slid back without any noise. Like everything else she had seen in his house, it had been well thought out and was of the best quality.