AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER
24
On Sunday, the Miles horde, as Joe called them, arrived for a working bee. The Bangadoon van had turned up at six sharp, towing a trailer loaded with a wicker daybed, bookcases, and three funky mirrors wrapped in old waffle-nylon eiderdowns, and from that moment on the farm had been chaos. Any minute now a TV crew was going to turn up, too, Kirsty thought, and maybe then the scene unfolding around her would make sense.
The Country Block, the show must be called. OrMy Farm Rules: a show where families competed with each other for who could be most helpful, or most efficient, or most zany.
She unzipped the last of the cushion cases the frowning sister, Felicity, had handed her and stuffed the calico pocket of duck down into it. Lachy—or was it Anthony? The middle two brothers were so alike she’d not worked out who was who—had made up the bed in the Station Cottage with the precision of a boarding school matron, stuffed his share of the cushions at breakneck speed, then hustled off to finish tiling the bathroom backsplash in Mooball.
Joe’s mother, who she’d met without realising that first day she’d lobbed up to the hotel motel—yep, the crazy aura lady:Call me Patty, darl—had whipped up a trestle arrangement and taken over the exterior painting of Mount Barney, helped by Felicity. Last time Kirsty had checked, they were three fascias and a downpipe away from having the cottage looking like the front cover of a country magazine.
Amy was sitting on her uncle’s knee—the other middle brother—and the two of them were whipping about the field with the ride-on mower, while her mother Daisy had set up in the stable, splashing paint around on canvas: artwork for the cabins.
Robbo, the patriarch, had a floral apron tied about his midriff and was tending a fire in the old kerosene barrel Joe had built into a circle of old sandstone blocks. He was tucking interesting foil parcels (Damper? Spuds? Corn cobs, maybe) into the hot coals.
Will had planted a spanking great kiss on her cheek when he arrived, then disappeared into Mount Barney Cottage with a wrench and a kitchen sink. All siblings covered except … oh yes.
Joe.
He had the knack of always being exactly where she looked for him, so she knew before she turned in the direction of the track leading to the main house that he’d be there.
He was fixing the fence line, and the work must have been hot out there in the blaze of late morning, because his shirtsleeves were pushed up his arms and he’d switched out his usual jeans for an ancient pair of boardshorts covered in flowers and surfboards.
Okay. Those shorts she would not expect to see on some farming-family reality TV show.
He looked up and caught her staring at him and she thought about feeling embarrassed. He’d kissed the dickens out of her not two days ago and she’d practically begged him—begged him—to doit again, which he hadn’t. Instead, he’d shot out of that waterhole like she’d just given him a dose of girl germs.
Whatever.
She’d stayed in the water, mortified, and he’d disappeared with some random people who’d turned up.
He was waving her over now, and she took a moment to pull a cap on and find her sunglasses, then headed across the field.
‘Could you give us a hand, Kirst?’ He was holding one of the old, iron-grey fence posts that had axe marks in its face that hadn’t been made by any machine. Lower strands of rusted barbed wire still ran through holes drilled into its length, but the top wire had snapped.
She eyed the coils of shiny new wire at his feet. ‘Probably. Do I need gloves?’
He jerked his chin over his shoulder. ‘Back pocket. My wire cutters are in there, and I need both hands to keep this post upright. Can you cut me a length about six feet?’
‘Er, sure.’ She sidled around to his back and eyed his shorts. They had frayed across his rear end and the weight of the wire cutters was dragging them low.
Real low.
She cleared her throat. For a bloke who didn’t want to try a second kiss on for size, he was advertising quite a lot of his wares. ‘Nice boardies. You might want to, um, wear something under them next time. Material’s a little frayed there, Joe.’
He looked back at her over his shoulder, and the laugh was in his eyes as well as in his voice. ‘Found them in the paint rag bucket; your concerns are noted. You going to pass me those cutters or ogle my arse?’
She frowned at him. ‘I don’t ogle the arses of my landlords.’
‘Pity,’ he said. ‘If only I’d known ogling was out of order. I’ve got this tenant, you see. I’ve been ogling her plenty.’
Really? But she’d thought—
She huffed out a breath. She should concentrate on the work at hand, not try and fathom what was going on between them. If anything. She eased her hand down and grabbed the red-handled pliers. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Pliers retrieved. Six feet of wire, I think you said?’
‘Yep. If you can cut the wire, then thread it through this hole here for me while I hold the post upright, then I can tie it off.’
She squatted at his feet and found the end of the wire. As she pulled up loops, it sprang at her in a tangle.
