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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
AARON TOOK A seat next to Julie around the campfire, and asked himself for the umpteenth time today, why he’d thought bringing her out on muster might be easier. He rolled his shoulders gingerly, feeling the ache deep in his bones. Aaron liked to think he kept himself super fit and healthy, with three to four gym visits a week, and regular, ten-kilometer runs whenever he had a spare hour. Today had been spent carting boxes of equipment as they unloaded the vehicles, erecting numerous tents and awnings, banging steel pegs into the ground to hold up the tents, helping Dale to get the bore pumping water to fill the tank for showers—which ended up with him covered in grease and dust—carting feed for the stock horses gathered in the makeshift yards, and running back and forth between the caravan and mess tent with endless food collection errands for Julie.
But even when the ringers arrived back at camp, they weren’t close to being finished. The first job once the cattle were in the yards was to draft out the weaners, calves, and dry cows. Some cattle would be sent for processing to the meat works, and they were kept in the large pens ready for the trundling trucks to come and collect them in a few days. The micky bulls—male calves—would be castrated, de-horned, ear clipped, branded and vaccinated before being let loose again. And the female calves given much the same treatment, so they could be released to fatten up and get ready for breeding next year. Aaron had watched the ringers doing this dusty, arduous job and suddenly didn’t envy them quite so much.
He was more physically fatigued than he’d been in a long time. The most frustrating and surprising part of it all was that Julie kept up with him—perhaps had done even more than he had. He’d forgotten how strong country women were, how hard they worked. It was a good lesson in humility.
He’d done it all while keeping a close eye on Julie, of course. He never let her out of his sight, and if anyone approached her, he would hover like an overprotective father. Even though he was now pretty sure Julie was safe. Grudgingly, he admitted that it’d take a hell of a lot of skill and pre-planning for the stalker to be one of these ringers sitting around the campfire. You couldn’t just pretend at this job. You were either a ringer, or you weren’t, there was no in-between, as he was beginning to discover the hard way. Because he wasn’t one, and knew they only accepted him because of Julie, and because the boss said they had to.
Even so, he wasn’t going to let his guard down. Just because he was pretty sure no one at this camp was the stalker, didn’t mean the offender couldn’t still infiltrate somehow. It’d be almost impossible for someone to find her out here, and even if they did, they wouldn’t be able to just swoop in and abduct her, because where would they take her? It was the middle of nowhere. Aaron had persuaded Steve not to let any guests come out to muster this year. Some of the hardier guests, with a good standard of riding, would often request to join the crew for a day. Steve had admitted that the guests were more of a liability and usually got in the way rather than being any help. But they liked to say they’d partaken in a truly top-end experience. So, Steve had agreed with Aaron almost right away regarding not involving the guests this year. Daniella had been harder to convince, however. She’d had a request from at least three couples to come out and watch the muster. But the fewer people who knew exactly where Julie was, the better. Part of the idea of getting Julie away from the lodge was to separate her from anyone suspicious, including the guests.
“Can I get you a drink?” Julie asked, bringing him back to the present with a jolt. “I’m going to make me a cup of tea, but I’m getting Dad and Dale a whisky. Do you want one?”
Aaron shook his head. He never drank alcohol while he was carrying a weapon. Some agents allowed themselves one or two, but he hated to think anything might impair his judgement. “Do you need a hand?” he asked, half-levering himself out of the chair.
“No, you stay here.” Julie put a hand on his shoulder to keep him from standing. An instinctive gesture perhaps, but Aaron felt the tingles spread down his arm from her touch. She withdrew her hand quickly and Aaron let his gaze follow her shadowy figure over to the mess tent. He should go and help her, she’d been on her feet all day, as well, and she must be as exhausted as he was. He was about to get up and go over to her, when the familiar figure of her stepbrother joined her at the table, a bottle of whisky in his hand, and he resettled himself into the chair.
“How was your first day?” The male voice came from beside him, and Aaron swivelled his head to take in the lanky guy sitting next to him in a folding chair that was too small for his tall frame. Aaron wracked his brain for a name.
“Great, thanks, Brian.” Aaron had made sure he’d been introduced to all the crew before they went out on muster this morning. Brian sat next to his wife, Rosie. They were a husband-and-wife team from down near Walgett, a small town in New South Wales. Julie had told him that the young couple were contracting out to other stations so they could earn enough money to stock their own small property. It was a hard life, but they hoped to do it for a few more years, then they’d have enough to call it quits.
“Call me Bazza, everyone else does.” Brian waved a hand in the air and Aaron noticed it was clean. When the team had returned to camp this afternoon, they were filthy, red dirt from head to toe, grime embedded in every fingernail and skin crease. This country was nothing like the lush, rolling hills of New South Wales. It didn’t take long before all the ringers were covered in a fine layer of bulldust. Some of the other ringers didn’t seem to be as fastidious—perhaps because they didn’t have a wife to nag them—but Bazza had washed his hands and face before he sat down to eat dinner. “It’s a bit of an eye-opener, your first time on muster, hey?” Brian added.
Was it that obvious? Aaron sighed. “Yes, this northern end of Australia is very different from most things I’ve experienced,” he agreed.
Aaron looked up as Julie returned to her chair and sat with her hands wrapped around a metal mug of tea. Dale took a seat on the other side of his stepsister, handing Steve a mug, which presumably contained a measure of whiskey. Aaron acknowledged Dale with a nod.
“What’s different?” Julie asked, taking a sip of her tea.
“I was just saying this country is a complete contrast to what I’m used to,” Aaron admitted. “I mean, Dalgety could get dry in the summer, but this is something else again.”
“Wait until the wet season,” Julie said with a smile. “The country goes from dry as a chip to a sea of mud, to grass so green and tall a grown man could get lost in it.”
“Hmm,” Aaron answered with a raised eyebrow. He really hoped he wasn’t still at Stormcloud by then. If he was, it meant they’d failed in their job to find this stalker and eliminate him.
“How did you guys meet?” Rosie spoke for the first time, leaning around her husband.
“What?” For a second, Aaron didn’t understand the question.
“You and Julie,” Rosie said with a cheeky smirk. “You make such a cute couple and I just wondered how you met.”
“Oh, ah…that. You want to know how we met?” Damn, his tongue was suddenly stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Rosie nodded, taking a sip from her bottle of beer.
He and Julie had worked out a vague story before they left the lodge, just in case anyone asked, but Aaron was still unprepared for the forthright question.
Images of the very first time Aaron had laid eyes on Julie came back to him. Julie had only been sixteen at the time, and him eighteen. Aaron had worked odd jobs on local farms in the area on weekends and after school. But now he’d finished school, he was looking for something more permanent. Old Joe, who ran the IGA supermarket in town, had mentioned that Tony Benitez over at Roseby Downs might be looking to hire. Aaron remembered arriving at the front of the homestead and stepping out of his ute to see a whirlwind charge past him in a nearby paddock; a slip of a girl on a palomino horse racing to the end of the field to try and shut the gate before a herd of sheep escaped. He’d watched, mesmerized, as she made it to the end just in time, leaping off her horse and shooing the sheep away while she dragged the metal gate closed. Then she’d trotted up to him and speared him with her blue eyes from beneath her hat, asking him what he wanted. In that second, he knew he wanted her. But it’d taken another couple of months, until after she’d turned seventeen, that he’d finally allowed the raging attraction sizzling between them to turn into a physical relationship. And even then, they’d kept it a secret from Julie’s mother and stepfather.
“It’s not a very interesting story, really. Around nine months ago, I arrived out at Stormcloud for a job interview, but I ended up getting lost,” Aaron said to Rosie. It was always better to stick as close to the truth as possible. And this part was true, apart from the timeline. “Julie found me wandering around and pointed me in the right direction, that’s all.” Aaron gave a shrug.
“But I bet it was love at first sight, though, hey?”
“Yes, it was,” Aaron admitted. “She drew me in with those gorgeous blue eyes and her amazing smile. And after I got the job, it didn’t take long for me to woo her into my arms.” Which had also true been true, twelve years ago. But now…? Julie had made it very clear she wanted nothing more to do with him, in a romantic fashion, at least.
“Aww, that’s so sweet,” cooed Rosie. “And did you know the first time you saw him that he was the guy for you?” The woman’s eyes lit up with enthusiasm as they landed on Julie.
Now it was Julie’s turn to squirm uncomfortably in her seat.
