A Bush Christmas Read Free Page B

Polly’s Plains House in the dark had been positively spooky . Huge old oak trees, mirror images of each other, limbs spread like double-jointed fingers, lined a long gravel drive that wound its way around a hill. Then there was the house itself, made of an ironstone brick, looming upwards into the shadowy night. The only bit of welcoming cheer was a swathe of white and purple agapanthus caught in the headlights of Ryan’s car.
    They’d finally found the back door, after Jaime had mistakenly gone round to the front.
    â€˜What are you doing?’ Ryan had asked as she’d mounted the imposing front steps, which swept upwards towards a magnificent Federation style door emblazoned with stained glass inserts.
    â€˜I’m going to knock on the door.’
    â€˜Why? You’re the only one here. Well, the only one at the big house, anyway.’
    Of course she was. How stupid of her. Otherwise the owner wouldn’t have wanted her here in such a desperate hurry. The previously arranged house-sitter hadreneged at the last minute and apparently the owner’s neurotic cat hated to be left alone. Another thing Jaime wasn’t too fond of – cats. She was a dog person through and through.
    â€˜I wonder how I get in then.’
    Ryan laughed. A contagious chuckle that immediately had her giggling too. She snatched another look at the ‘college boy’. He really was rather sweet.
    â€˜C’mon, city-slicker, you need to understand how we do things up here in the bush. You go in the back door, never the front. In fact the front door’s probably been glued up with layers of paint for so long the flies have even forgotten about it.’ And with that, Ryan grabbed her hand and towed her around the long verandah, over a rose garden, through a vegie patch in dire need of attention, past a long-forgotten well and up to a back door. He pushed the wire screen open with one hand and flourished a make-believe hat with the other. ‘After you, mademoiselle.’
    Jaime grinned. Yep, he sure was a sweetie.
    Not like the stockman who’d left the piece of paper for her. He obviously thought she was a bloke.
    She shooed a reluctant Ryan out the door, thanking him for his trouble before turning to reread the message.
    Jamie,
    There’s bread in the freezer, long life milk in the pantry, eggs, bacon and butter in the fridge. Need some help in the cattle yards in the morning. Meet you there 7 am. Just follow the house track around the back of the sheds and down onto the flat.
    S McEvoy
    And that’s why she hated her name. Why couldn’t her parents have given her a pretty one like Sarah, Kate or Emily? Instead, she’d been saddled with a boy’s name with a wanky spelling. So not only did she have to deal with Mr Jamie Hanrahan all the time, she had to sound the damn thing out as well. Add Josephina – a nod to some long-lost great-aunt – and you had JJ. And she hated JJ. It sounded so American.
    She read the note again, actually taking in the words this time.
    Butter? Bacon? Yum! Imagine the looks on the faces of the girls at Wheetles & Brute. All that fat and cholesterol. They would faint at the sight of the frying pan.
    What else did this S McEvoy say? Cattle? Well that’d be a story to tell the girls when she got back home. She’d kind of hoped she might get up close and personal with a cow. In fact her friends had all banded together and bought her just the footwear should she find herself facing this eventuality. Big, chunky hiking boots from Colorado to suit all occasions.
    Then she remembered that said footwear was still in her suitcase sitting behind the bar of the Lake Grace Hotel. (The faux leopardskin suitcase was probably having a party with the Kelly boys by now.)
    She walked out onto the glassed-in verandah that circumnavigated the big old mansion she was to call home for the next four weeks. She cast her eyes around until she spotted a boot rack