by Jessica Kate
“What is?”
Kimberly stepped back into the kitchen just as Jules dunked her knife into a jar of Vegemite. She wrinkled her nose at the salty scent. The stuff was basically a form of black tar that Australians thought tasted good on toast. “Sam being nice.”
Was he a bomb waiting to explode? Did he agree with her idea? Or did he really just need a while to process?
Her phone beeped. Message from Steph: double thumbs-up. Obviously the woman had faith that Kimberly could convince him to return.
Now she just had to deliver.
Jules—allegedly not in a pizza mood, if such a thing were possible—smeared a thin layer of black across her buttered toast, then added slices of avocado and cheese on top. “Was that before or after the big smooch?” She bit her toast and rolled her eyes in apparent ecstasy.
Kimberly slid onto a barstool at the counter and tried to talk her cheeks out of blushing. “It was just Kiss Cam.” Or so she’d told herself twenty million times last night. She leaned forward. “And I wasn’t the only one smooching. How is the neighbor boy this morning?”
Jules stuck out her tongue. “I kissed his cheek. And I have no idea how he is this morning.” She pulled out her phone. “Unless you count this GIF he sent, but I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
Kimberly peered at the screen. A three-second grab of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre dude. “He’s about to chop up that tree that fell on the fence. With Sam. He’s way too excited about using that chain saw.”
“He’s what?” Jules yanked open the kitchen drawer and rummaged through it. Kimberly leaned over to see what she was after. Binoculars?
Jules pushed past her and hobbled to the window at the veranda.
“What are you doing?”
“I just wanna make sure they do a good job with that tree. If Mick happens to look great swinging an ax, that’s pure coincidence.”
Kimberly rolled her eyes. Jules never pulled her gaze from the window but swirled her finger in the universal signal for “Go on.” “So, isn’t that a good thing? Sounds like you guys might be able to agree on something after all.”
Kimberly just nodded. The thing was, her throat had just about closed over with nervousness as she squeaked out her plan to Sam. It would’ve been easier if he’d thrown his hands in the air and stomped out. What if he’d been right? What if she talked him and Jules into this and then it didn’t work? Would either of them ever forgive her?
Could she forgive herself?
“I think it’s just in your head, Kimberlina. It’s not weird.” Jules lurched forward until her binoculars hit the glass, apparently liking whatever she saw. “Oh. My. Gosh.”
Kimberly smiled at her friend but laced her fingers together and willed them to stop sweating. Last night, when Sam had offered her his friendship, she’d gotten just about everything she’d ever wanted.
But now she had something to lose.
* * *
Sam swung Dad’s old ax through the air and sank it deep into a block of wood. The impact’s vibrations went all the way down to his bones. They’d used the chain saw and tractor to cut the trunk and drag the pieces off the fence and over to the edge of the paddock of rye grass stubble, but the wood would be handy for Jules’s fire come winter.
Though that didn’t quite explain the ferocity of his swing.
Mick picked up his own block splitter from the tray of the ute. “Maaaaate.” He jammed a weather-beaten Akubra on his head as he dragged the word out. “What did that tree ever do to you?”
Sam halved the next block in one chop. Giant splinters of wood flew toward his face, and he jerked back. “Fell on my fence.” Technically the fence his mother owned, which penned the cattle his sister owned. But whatever.
Mick lined up his own block. “Shift your grip or you’re going to lose a foot. What did Kimberly do?”
Sam tossed the ax aside and bent to grab the chopped pieces of wood, the scent of eucalyptus tickling his nostrils. “What?” He hadn’t whinged to Mick about Kim—not now, and not before either.
“Jules is a big gossip.” Mick answered the unasked question, then cocked his head in the direction of the house. “The girls inside right now?”
Sam nodded as he deposited an armful of wood into the ute tray, accumulating approximately six thousand splinters in the process. His friend dropped his ax long enough to strip off his battered hi-vis shirt and toss it on the grass.
Sam glanced at the overcast sky. The morning had been steamy, but a short rain shower an hour ago had broken the humidity and dropped the temperature by about seven degrees. He inhaled a deep breath of the rain-scented air. “Hot already?”
“Just betting Jules has her binoculars out.”
Sam smirked and lined up his next block. “Don’t you have a girlfriend?”
“I made her up.”
Sam’s blow glanced off the wood and almost hit his foot. He snapped his gaze up to Mick. “You what?”
Mick pointed a finger at him. “No judging. We were talking about your problems, not mine.”
Sam let the thought marinate for a moment. Nope. Still weird. “My problems don’t involve imaginary girlfriends.”
Mick shrugged. “It was either beg Jules to take me back or tell her I have a girlfriend.”
“That’s a real logical approach.” Sam tightened his grip on the ax. Mick and Jules had broken each other’s hearts once already, and Mick was still as committed to the coast as she was to the country. Not good.
Mick gave him a pointed look. “I’m not the one fighting with the girl who followed me all the way from America.”
Sam pulled a face. What was he implying? Besides . . . “We didn’t fight. This time.”
Mick gave a teenage-girl-worthy eye roll. “Do I need to beat it out of you?”
“We’re coming up with options for Jules.”
“Jules told me.”
Just how much had the vet been talking with his sister? Maybe he should suss Jules out. Nothing like focusing on other people’s problems to distract from his own.
Sam rolled his shoulders as he formulated his words. His muscles would ache for sure. But that wasn’t the reason he wasn’t looking forward to the coming days. “Kim told me her plan. It’s more risk than I’d like. But maybe we don’t have that many options, and I don’t know what to tell Jules.”
Thwack! Mick landed a blow in the dead center of his block. “How is that a decision? Just lay the options out.”
Sam shrugged. “If Kim and I say we agree on a plan, Jules will do it.”
A wood chip came flying toward his head. He ducked. “Hey!”
Mick threw a second one at him. It bounced off his forehead. “You’re selling Jules short. It’s her responsibility, not yours. Who made you king of the farm?”
Sam pegged the wood chip back at him. “I’m not king of the farm, doofus. They’re her cattle. It’s Mum’s land. I just don’t want to influence her in one direction and then have it go wrong.”
Mick shook his head. “Trust her to make up her mind. You can’t control the outcome. Just tell her the truth.”
Sam chewed on that thought for a moment. “You gonna do that too?”
Mick grinned a wicked smile and hoisted the ax again. “Eventually. But I’m gonna make her sweat first.”
Chapter 21
“This is all on you, Kim.”
Jules’s ominous words carried over the backyard as even the cattle, munching away three paddocks down, seemed to hold their breath.
This was it. Take no prisoners. Winner takes all.
Kimberly stared down her opponent: Mick, who stood in front of the garbage bin with a cricket bat at the ready. The dying sun threw harsh shadows across his face and gave his wink an evil glint.
She weighed the tennis ball in her hand, rubbed her palm over its fluffy surface, a little wet with Meg’s slobber. If she bowled the ball too fast, Mick could smash it over the fence for six points, called runs, and win this Girls versus Boy
s backyard cricket match—that is, if she’d understood Sam’s explanation of the rules correctly. But too slow, and he could use the remaining three balls of the game to build up the four runs needed to beat the girls. They needed to get him out lest he win himself, Butch, and Sam unlimited bragging rights and a pass from cleaning up the barbecue dinner that still left its salty sweetness on her tongue.
Technically Butch was playing the role of umpire, though he’d fallen asleep in his camp chair twenty minutes ago after a dinner of barbecue ribs and comic book talk. Well, not a lot of talk on Butch’s part, but his eyes had lit up when she showed him more of Dad’s illustrations. Still, Mick had made it clear: whichever gender lost the game dealt with the dishes.
“You can do it, Kim!” Jules leaned forward behind the bin—which substituted for the three sticks known as a wicket—in her position as “wickie” or wicket keeper. If Kim bowled the ball and it hit the bin, the girls would win. If Jules touched the ball to the bin while the guys were outside the “crease”—the line before the wickets—they would win. But if Mick got a good hit in, they were done for.
Sam grinned back at Kim from his spot three feet away from her.
“Do your worst, USA.” Mick’s taunts carried across the pitch, which the boys had mowed specifically for this purpose. “Show me some of that all-American spirit.”
Jules narrowed her eyes at his back. “Oh, we’re bringing nationality into this now, Irish boy? ’Cos I’ve got a few things I could—”
Kimberly clutched the ball in her right hand and brought both hands to her chin as she took two quick steps, swung her arms in the windmill motion she’d been practicing for the last hour, and released the ball at the top of the arc.
The ball’s trajectory remained straight. It bounced once and came up high.
Mick took a big step forward outside the crease. Swung. Missed. Jules snapped the ball up with both hands and touched it against the bin.
The backyard dissolved into uproar.
Mick’s face dropped, and he sank to his knees with an anguished cry.
“Howzat!” Jules unleashed a victory whoop as she ran-hobbled with one crutch straight for Kimberly. She lifted her from the ground in a hug and swung her in a circle, all balanced on one leg.
Butch woke from his nap with a snort. Even Meg seemed to celebrate with a flurry of barks.
Jules dropped Kimberly back on her feet and grabbed both her hands. “I’m adopting you. Honestly. You now have an open invite to our house for any and every Christmas.” Her face was so close, Kimberly could count the riot of flecks in her green eyes.
Kimberly eased a step back and bumped into something solid. She caught a whiff of Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce and cotton-scented fabric softener, mixed with an indefinable quality that prickled her skin into goose bumps.
Sam.
She half turned to face him and Jules, and he held a hand up for a high five. It took effort to pry the fingers of one hand from Jules’s grip, but she managed to give him a hearty slap.
The crinkles by his eyes glowed with amusement. “Well done.”
The two words shot warmth through her. This is what it felt like to have Sam’s approval. She drank it in like a flower in drought. How things had changed in the past two weeks.
“You might think I’m free and easy with my Christmas invites,” Jules continued saying as if Sam weren’t standing there, smelling so good and smiling at her like she was the only person who existed. “But I’m not. Butch has one. Mick’s is revoked until he admits that I’m a better spin bowler than him.”
Mick dragged the bin back to its usual place. “I’d rather Santa gave me coal.”
Jules flipped her braid over her shoulder. “That’s happening either way.”
“Actually I can still use my invite from Sam. He has equal Christmas power. Your mum’s rules.” Mick deposited the bin in its place and sent a triumphant smirk in Jules’s direction.
“You have Christmas rules?” Kimberly slapped at a mosquito. Night was coming.
“Penny had to.” The rough voice sounded from behind Kimberly, and she whipped around.
Butch shifted in his chair enough to pull a cigarette and lighter from his pocket and lit up as he spoke. “When Sammy was a teenager, he invited fourteen people for Christmas one year. Two were blokes he picked up hitchhiking.”
Jules hopped over to Butch, dropped an arm around his shoulders, and squeezed him to her side. “One of them was a real jerk. We never could get rid of him.”
Butch grunted, but a glimmer of a smile peeked around his cigarette.
Apparently aware he’d reached his word limit for the day, Jules took over the explanation. “Mum will cater for five guests we invite each per year. Any more, and we have to cook.”
Sam returned with the bat and ball. “That was the year my culinary triumphs began. Just wait till you try my double-decker pavlova.”
Kimberly’s mouth watered at the picture they painted, and not just of Sam’s dessert. Christmas traditions. Teasing. Lifelong friends.
Her yearly date with Captain Malcolm Reynolds and the rest of the Firefly gang hadn’t ever ranked on the top-Christmases-of-all-time list, but never before had it seemed so depressing. A quake of emotion shook her. She sucked in a deep breath and willed this ridiculous rush of tears to dissipate from behind her eyes. Did these people have any idea of what they had?
Sam caught his sister’s attention. “That reminds me, Kez and Bonesy are coming.”
Jules hobbled back over to Kimberly and slung an arm around her shoulders. “That puts you at eight. Kim counts as one of mine.”
One of mine.
Kim darted her gaze around the scene before her. She needed to imprint this moment in her memory for all those future birthdays and Christmases she’d spend alone. Butch, quiet and relaxed with his cigarette and this makeshift family that had barreled into his life. Jules and Mick’s banter—how they maintained this deep friendship despite the energy that vibrated between them, she’d never know.
And Sam. Packing up everyone’s dinner plates from the plastic outdoor table with the satisfied expression of a man who’d successfully brought people together—dinner and cricket had been his idea—and was planning to do it again with his Christmas. Kimberly had no doubt that Butch, Kez, and Bonesy wouldn’t ever spend any holidays alone while he was near.
She sighed. Lucky them.
Sam pitched a Coke can into the trash—nothing but net—and picked up a stack of dishes. “Time to head inside for the formal part of this evening, Jules.”
Kimberly’s stomach lurched. Their presentation. She’d managed to quell her nervousness up until this point. But now Jules had dangled the lure of future Christmases.
God, I don’t think I can do this. Sam had surprised her by offering to present their findings to Jules himself, but she’d still need to field most of the questions. They were telling Jules that her financial position was far more precarious than she knew. Nothing about this would be easy.
Kimberly’s eyes darted around, searching for escape. The detached garage loomed on one side of the yard, offering sanctuary. As the others packed up chairs, she headed that direction. She couldn’t do this. Her breaths came shallow and rapid. She couldn’t stand there and watch Jules’s expression turn from expectation to disappointment or anger. Why had she ever thought this was a good idea?
“You okay?” Sam’s voice came from right behind her.
She spun, hand on her heart. “Where did you come from?”
He glanced over his shoulder at the others, occupied with a discussion on this week’s Australia versus India test cricket match. “Come on.” He tugged her elbow and led her over to the side of the garage, out of sight of the others. She leaned against the worn timber, disregarding the peeling paint flecks probably attaching themselves to Dad’s old Stargate SG-1 shirt.
“You’re not backing out on me now, are you?” Sam stood close, voice lowered, leaning on the same wall.
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br /> “No, I just, um . . .” She folded her arms tight against her chest as her throat ached. “I don’t know.” Her vision tunneled onto the vine growing up the posts that held the house up off the ground.
He mimicked her posture against the wall and tilted in her direction until his shoulder brushed hers. “Your plan makes sense. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t trust you.”
“If I didn’t trust you.” Obviously that trust had limits, as he hadn’t said yes to Wildfire yet. But he’d heard her out, asked questions that showed he’d actually listened, and promised to pray it over. And he’d said yes to this.
She rubbed her arm against a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. “I’m just worried about how she’s going to react.”
He gave a slow nod. “She might be a bit freaked out at first.”
Kimberly bit her lip. He didn’t get it. To them she was a short-term friend, that girl from America who visited that one time. But for her—she’d treasure the memories of this month for life. She couldn’t spoil it with a bad ending.
“Hey.” He nudged her. “What are you thinking? You don’t have to hide it.”
She cleared her throat. He could have honesty or tears but not both. “She’s going to hate me.”
“That’s not true.” He came off the wall and gripped her upper arms, head bent so even her downward gaze couldn’t avoid him. “We appreciate what you’re doing, and I’m so sorry we ever made you feel otherwise—that I ever made you feel otherwise. Both at Wildfire and now.”
She met his gaze. Oh, he was close, close enough for her to drown in the hot-fudge depths of those eyes. Was he changing his mind about Wildfire?
He gave her a smile. “You said last week that you believed in me.” He rubbed her arms and her chill faded. “This is me saying that I believe in you. We don’t have to do this if you really don’t want to, but don’t back out ’coz you’re scared. This isn’t all on you. We’re a team.”