Summer Down Under (12 page)

“Sam, I got it!” Daniel said, but his words
didn’t sink in. “Sam, it’s dead.”

She felt him grab her out-of-control hands in
a firm grip, holding her wrists in his hands to stop her from
scratching desperately at her face.

“It’s dead, Sam. It’s gone!” he shouted.

Her breathing was still rapid, and she could
see little spots dancing around in front of her eyes. She sensed
the urgency in Daniel’s voice as he shouted the same words
again.

“It’s dead, Sam. You’re okay.”

This time she heard him. Her breathing
slowed, and she started to let the tension in her arms and hands
ebb.

“Are you sure?” she asked, voice shaky with
fear.

“Look for yourself.” He pointed at a large
squished mess on the ground beside her feet. She automatically took
a big step backwards.

Sam’s breathing slowly calmed, but her body
started to shake. Daniel took a hold of her shoulders and guided
her over to the four-wheeler where he sat the shaken jillaroo down
sideways on the seat and kneeled in front of her, taking her hands
in his. Sam looked down at his compassion-filled eyes.

“Sam, it was just a gidgee spider; it wasn’t
poisonous. Freaky looking, I admit, but not poisonous.”

“Like that’s supposed to mean something to
me?” she snapped, shooting him an incredulous look to drive home
the point. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. “That’s not
why I freaked out,” she confided, remembering the horrific event
that would be forever seared onto the back of her mind. “When I was
a kid, about six or seven years old, we had just moved into a brand
new house. There were no carpets on the floors yet, just the bare
floor boards.” She sucked in a deep steadying breath, trying to
push back the image. “I was in bed asleep. Mum used to leave a
light on in the hall that shone through my open door acting as a
nightlight. I woke up for some reason one night and looked down my
bed. The light from the hall created a silhouette of the huge
spider that was crawling up my bed and towards my face. I froze. I
should have thrown the covers back, but I just froze. As it got
closer and closer to my face, I became more and more terrified.

I was finally able to let out a scream, and
Mum came running into my room and scooped it up in her hands just
before it reached my chin. Even she admitted it was a big spider,
but I think it looked so big to me back then because I was so
little. I had nightmares for weeks after that, I couldn’t sleep on
my own and certainly wouldn’t enter my room again. Mum eventually
had to swap my room with my sister’s room before I would sleep on
my own again. I have been terrified of spiders ever since.”

A few minutes passed while her nerves calmed.
Daniel stood up in front of her.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered.

Sam wrinkled her eyebrows.

“I need to finish the job you started,” he
said as he brought his hand to her cheek and pulled a strand of
sticky web from her skin. Sam’s skin tingled under his touch and
she did as he said. She felt his fingers work around the delicate
area of her eyes and felt a light tug on her eyelashes. She could
feel the warmth of his breath on her face and his nearness spurred
a pool of heat low in her belly. His fingers finished around her
eyes and snaked a trail down her cheek. The deep breath he drew in
prompted her to open her eyes. She saw him cast a worried glance
down her cheek before he returned his gaze to her.

“You gave yourself quite a scratch,” he
whispered.

Had she? She couldn’t feel anything but
comfort at that moment.

Silence stretched between them for a moment.
Their faces just inches from one another.

“You think I’m stupid, don’t you?” Sam said,
breaking the tranquility of the moment.

Daniel paused, searching her eyes. “No, Sam,
I don’t. Bad things that happen in childhood are sometimes the
hardest things to overcome.”

Becoming uncomfortable at his close
proximity, Sam tore her eyes away and looked over at the sheep.
“Oh, no!”

Daniel turned at her outcry. The neat flock
they had gathered was scattering in every direction.

“Don’t worry,” Daniel said. “I’ve got
this.”

Daniel got back on his bike to get the sheep
back together. His deft maneuvering of the flock had them back
together in no time. A few moments later, he was back at her side
again.

“What the heck does gidgee mean, anyway?” Sam
asked, intrigued by the odd sounding word now that she’d had a
chance to calm down.

“It’s a tree. That’s a gidgee tree over
there.” He pointed to where she had just had the run in with the
spider. “We call them gidgee spiders only because they spin their
webs between the bushes to catch bugs.”

“Well, that one certainly caught something it
didn’t bargain for,” Sam said, trying to add a little humor to
shake off her jitters.

“Are you okay to carry on?” Daniel asked.

“Yes, I’m fine. Sorry I freaked out on
you.”

“No worries, everyone is scared of something.
You’d laugh at what I’m scared of.”

That statement intrigued her. She couldn’t
imagine someone like him being scared of anything.

“Oh, yeah? And what would that be?” she
asked.

“I might tell you one day, but you’ll lose
all respect for me,” he answered with a smirk and a wink. Daniel
turned his bike around and rode off towards the flock.

Sam started up the four-wheeler and followed
after him.

They continued to move the flock forward for
what seemed like hours. The noise of the sheep braying was almost
deafening. Daniel rode ahead to open a gate. At that point, Sam
knew they were getting closer to the holding pen they were going to
put them in that night.

He came back to join her at the rear, and as
they started to go through the gate, he told her they could turn
their engines off.

“We don’t need to muster them for a while,
they will go through the gate on their own now that the leaders are
through. We can send Jess out to push them on, if needed.”

Jess was sitting beside Daniel’s bike panting
like crazy. The young dog had been running along beside him the
whole time they were pushing the sheep forward. Sam leaned down,
cupped her palm and trickled water into it for her. She lapped it
up, splashing water all over Sam’s legs.

Sitting watching the sheep file through the
gate, Sam became aware of just how sore her chest had become with
all the bumpy riding, and, absentmindedly, started rubbing it.

“Sore?” Daniel asked, raising a very sleek
eyebrow.

Sam felt the heat rush to her cheeks.
Mortified, she buried her face in her hands.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he
continued, noticing her embarrassment. “Try bouncing around on
these all day. I know how you feel.” He pointed down to his nether
regions.

Sam pulled her face from her hands and looked
at Daniel. Then her eyes, completely against her will, wandered
downwards to where he was pointing. They lingered for a moment
before she regained control and forced them back to his face. She
giggled, then the giggles turned to laughter. His look of
bemusement made her laugh even more until tears started running
down her cheeks.

“What?” he asked. “It’s not funny. It’s
actually quite painful. Why do you think I told us to stop for a
while?”

Sam got her laughter under control and smiled
at him.

“Think about what you just said to me,” she
stated.

“I only said try bouncing around on these all
day.” Once again he pointed to his nether regions. At that moment,
the penny dropped and his cheeks flushed. She couldn’t help but
giggle again.

“Oh, very funny,” he groaned, then with a
glint in his eye, continued. “I don’t suppose you’d care to, would
you?”

Sam’s eyes widened at his suggestion and her
eyebrows shot up. That will teach her to have her mind in the
gutter. As indignant as she tried to look, the very center of her
started to warm up again, obviously, having its own agenda.

She cleared her throat and looked down at the
handle bars on her four-wheeler. “Not right now, thank you,” she
said trying to sound nonplussed. In actual fact, she felt quite
flustered inside.

They sat in silence for a few moments, until
Daniel decided to send Jess out to push the sheep along a bit.

“Way back, Jess,” he commanded, signaling to
the dog with his hand.

Without hesitation, she careened off in front
of them, but instead of rounding the flock and pushing them
forward, she shot straight through the middle of the mass of wooly
puff balls and sent the sheep running in all directions.

“Useless mutt!” Daniel cursed at the top of
his voice, gesturing at the mayhem that was evolving right before
their eyes. “That is the reason why I didn’t want to bring her. She
has no clue how to herd sheep. Unfortunately, if she doesn’t get it
in the next couple of weeks it’s good night for her.”

“What? You’ll find her a new home?” Sam
asked, knowing full well that was not what Daniel meant.

“Father will put a bullet through her head,”
he said grimly.

Sam could see by the look on his face, he
didn’t like the idea any more than she did. But she had no doubt
that Mr. Miller wouldn’t think twice about it. To him, they were
only working animals; if they didn’t work, then they were a
burden.

Sam decided at that moment she would take it
upon herself to train the hapless sheep dog. She had trained her
dog back home, so she had some idea of where to start. Admittedly,
she’d never trained a sheep dog before, but how hard could it be?
One thing was for sure, this usually self-doubting English girl was
not about to let Mr. Miller shoot a poor defenseless creature. Not
if she could help it.

“Come on,” Daniel groaned. “Let’s sort this
mess out so we can go home.”

A couple of hours later, as the sun was
getting low in the sky, they finally got all the sheep into the
holding pen ready for the next day’s work. While they were waiting
for the sheep to settle, Sam noticed that the noise level slowly
started to abate.

“They’re quieting down,” she said in a hushed
voice, worried she might start them off again.

“The reason they make so much noise is
because the mothers and lambs were separated on the move. Their
call is the only way of identifying each other. As soon as the
mother finds her lamb, they both stop calling,” Daniel
explained.

Sam started looking for mothers. Just as
Daniel said, as soon as a mother and lamb found each other, they
stopped calling. By the time the two left them, the flock was
almost silent. Sam and Daniel rode slowly back to the house and
peeled themselves off their respective motor vehicles.

Sam wasn’t sure if her legs would ever close
back together again or not. She staggered back to her room feeling
like one of the bandy cowboys her mother loved to watch in old Wild
West movies. She collapsed on the bed. A few minutes later, there
was a soft tap on the door. She cracked one eye open to see a
familiar face peeking around it.

“You can use the shower first, if you’d
like,” Daniel said.

“Thank you,” she replied in earnest. “I’ll
take you up on that offer this time. My body aches so much I’m not
sure I’ll ever be able to move again.”

“Let me know when you’re finished,” he
asked.

“Will do.”

She waited for his footsteps to grow faint
down the hallway before rolling off the bed. After quickly
undressing, Sam meandered into the bathroom. She must have been on
autopilot because she didn’t even remember getting into the shower.
She did, however, remember opening her eyes halfway through
shampooing her hair and seeing yet another enormous black spider
slinking down the wall with ominous intent. She let out a blood
curdling scream.
What is this?
She thought.
Is today
‘Let’s stalk Sam day?’
Then wondered if the spiders had some
sort of competition going to see who could give her a heart attack
first?

Sam jumped out of the shower and grabbed her
robe. Not a moment too soon, either. The door flew open. Daniel
burst in and scanned the bathroom.

“Sam, what’s wrong? What happened?”

Sam pointed at the hairy arachnid creeping
down the wall.

“A-another one,” she stuttered, eyes fixated
on the creature happily making its home in their bathroom.

Daniel did it again. He leaned over the
bathtub and scooped up the offender in his hand, opened the
bathroom window and threw it outside.

“How can you
do
that?” Sam shuddered.
“How can you pick them up?”

“That one wasn’t poisonous either,” he stated
with a shrug. “Sam, you’re shaking again. Are you alright?”

His gaze shifted and his eyes lowered down
the length of her. The self-conscious jillaroo suddenly became very
aware that her dripping wet and naked body was covered with nothing
more than a thin piece of cotton masquerading as a bath robe, which
was also dripping wet and clinging to her every curve. Curves that
she was ashamed of and didn’t want any man to see, especially the
man standing in front of her at that very moment.

She grabbed a towel and held it around her
trying her best to cover what the robe had failed to do.

“I’m fine, honestly.”

He looked unconvinced.

“Honestly, Daniel. I’m alright. Thank you for
removing the spider, but I’d like to finish my shower now.”

He didn’t move. He looked like he was in a
trance.

Sam clicked her fingers. “I’m not going to
finish it with you standing there,” she announced.

Daniel blinked a couple of times and focused
his attention back on her face.

“No, of course not. Sorry,” he said as he
backed out of the door, closing it with a soft click as he
left.

The somewhat shaken Sam hesitantly stepped
back into the shower and quickly finished rinsing the shampoo from
her hair.