Summer Down Under (13 page)

“I’m finished,” she called down the corridor
towards Daniel’s room, letting him know she was out of the shower
and it was free for him to use. She then hightailed it into her
room before he could see her wrapped in nothing but a towel.

Dinner proceeded just like the day before,
and, yet again, Mrs. Miller had cooked up a delight.

“So, how did Jess work out for you today?”
Mr. Miller asked Daniel.

“Oh, she was…” Daniel started to say before
Sam kicked him under the table and looked at him, willing him not
to say anything bad about the hapless sheepdog.

He grunted slightly and furrowed his brows at
her before continuing to answer his father’s question. “Great, Dad.
She was great.”

Sam waited for Mr. Miller to turn his
attention away from the co-conspirators before mouthing a
“thank
you”
to Daniel. Then she added for good measure
“Sorry for
kicking you.”

He gave her his now signature martyred look.
She felt that he was probably wondering what the heck he had gotten
himself into, having to work with her. Maybe he was wishing she had
said something about them being together in Bali. Oh, well. It was
a bit late now.

Sam did an excellent impression of the
Tasmanian Devil as she washed up that evening, leaving Daniel
drying and putting away. Just as she was about to slink out of the
kitchen, he called after her.

“Where are you going in such a hurry?”

“I want to write a letter to my mum,” she
lied. “So, I’m turning in early. ‘Night Daniel,” she called as she
was half way down the hall headed towards her bedroom.

Having no intentions of turning in, she
walked in one door, pulled on her boots and scooted out the other.
Making sure to tip toe her way down the deck, through the front
entrance, and then headed towards the dog kennels. Sam was on a
mission and that was to save Jess from the bullet.

She approached the dogs, calling softly to
them before she arrived at their kennels so they would know it was
her and, hopefully, not bark. Well, that was her theory, anyway,
and, thankfully it worked, this time.

Both dogs greeted the friendly girl with
wagging tails. She didn’t care what Mr. Miller said, she petted
them both fervently, and they lapped up the attention.

“Okay, Jess,” she said, scratching the dog
behind her ears. “We need to shape you up and make a sheep dog out
of you. I have no idea how I am going to accomplish this task, but
I always enjoy a challenge. One thing’s for sure, if I have to
kidnap you myself, I will not let that nasty man shoot you.”

She unclipped the excited dog from the chain
attached to her kennel and clipped a leash to her collar. For the
next hour, they went through some basic things. Sit, stay, come,
etc. Jess picked them up so quickly, Sam didn’t think she should
have any problems with more complicated things, like rounding up
sheep.

“Well, I think our lesson is over for this
evening,” Sam said, patting the young trainee on the head and
attaching her kennel chain to her collar. “I wouldn’t want anyone
to notice I’m missing and come looking for me. That wouldn’t do
either of us any good.”

“It’s a bit late for that,” a voice whispered
from behind a nearby tree.

Sam whipped around, startled. “How long have
you been standing there?” she demanded.

“Long enough to see that you have a knack
with dogs,” Daniel replied. “Dad would kill you if he knew you were
trying to train one of his dogs.”

“Well, we better make sure he doesn’t find
out then, hadn’t we?” Sam retaliated in her best threatening
manner, which she had to admit was not very convincing. “Coz your
dad will kill this dog over my dead body.”

Daniel raised his hands in defeat. “Steady
on, girl. You’re secret is safe with me. I’m not going to say
anything to Dad.”

“Well, then, will you help me?” Sam asked,
after calming down from being startled. “I don’t know the first
thing about training a dog to work sheep, but I’m guessing you
do.”

He leaned against the tree and gave her a
thoughtful look.

“Please,” she pleaded, “Please, help me. You
don’t want to see Jess get the bullet any more than I do.”

“Okay. I’ll help you.” He sighed. He had to
admit she was right. He didn’t want to see Jess get the bullet,
either.

“Thank you. You won’t regret this, I
promise.”

Sam stepped over to where he was standing and
gave him a hug. It was an automatic response, but no sooner had she
wrapped her arms around his chest, she tensed when she realized
just how good it felt. She breathed in the wonderful scent that was
uniquely him. A second later, she shook her head and took a step
back, avoiding looking at the man in front of her.

She felt a hand coax her chin up.

“Why won’t you let me near you?” he
whispered.

Sam brought her eyes up, his gentle gaze
searching her. She wished she could let him in, but
self-preservation took over.

“It’s not personal,” she said, voice so soft
it was almost a whisper. “I can’t let anyone near me, ever again.”
With that, she gently pulled away and headed back towards the
house. One solitary tear forced its way from her eye and dropped to
the ground to be stepped on by her footfall.

The next morning started off just as the one
before it, being awakened by the delicious smell of breakfast
wafting down the hall from the kitchen.

This time, however, Sam did not bump into
Daniel outside the bathroom. In fact, he was already seated and
deep in conversation with his father by the time she entered the
dining room. They saw her and rose from their seats.

This was something she could get used to, but
then she looked down at what she was wearing and smiled. It was
just not the right setting to be that chivalrous. It made her feel
obliged to find a corset and a long dress, instead of her scruffy
work shirt, jeans and scuffed boots. But it did make her feel very
special, something that she hadn’t felt in a long time.

Sam got to her chair and Daniel pushed it in
as she sat, although, the warm smile she had become accustomed to
was replaced with a look of cool indifference. She started to
analyze the feeling of being robbed that was taking hold in her
gut. She felt like something precious had been stolen from her. She
decided to ignore the feeling; it would probably make things a lot
less complicated, anyway. She started a conversation instead,
something she always did when nervous.

“So, what are we doing today, then?” she
asked, as bright and cheery as she could muster.

“We have to separate the sheep. We’ll put
ewes with lambs, then separate wethers and rams,” said Mr.
Miller.

“What are wethers, and why do we do
that?”

Mr. Miller tsked at his trainee jillaroo. Sam
brushed the annoyance aside and held her gaze steady. She’d never
worked on a farm before. She didn’t know what wethers were, or why
you need to separate the sheep.

“Wethers,” continued Mr. Miller, somewhat
impatiently, “are male sheep that have been neutered. We have to
separate them because they have different types of wool. The lambs
need to stay with the ewes until they are weaned, and the rams need
to be taken out of the flock because they have done their job for
this year.”

“Oh,” Sam said, raising her eyebrows. She
chuckled, garnering her a glare from her grouchy employer.

Daniel didn’t say a word to her through
breakfast, and something was stopping her from even looking at him.
Sam knew all too well what it was, but wasn’t strong enough to
confront it yet.

They finished eating and all headed to the
holding pen where the sheep were left the night before. On closer
inspection, it was a fairly intricate puzzle of pens and gates, and
right in the middle of it all was the shearing shed.

Sam soon learned how it all worked. They had
to encourage the sheep down a narrow chute, which opened up into
two separate pens at the end. A gate could be moved from side to
side between each opening, thus being able to separate the sheep as
they ran down the chute towards the pens. Simple idea, she thought.
Getting them to go down the chute in the first place was quite a
different matter.

Daniel and Sam started making all kinds of
whooping noises, urging the sheep on. The dogs were helping, too,
by zigzagging behind the flock. As soon as the first sheep plucked
up the courage to go, they all followed suit. As long as the two of
them kept the flock moving forward, it became easy to keep the line
going.

They did that for several hours. Sam thought
it was almost hypnotizing to watch Mr. Miller moving the gate from
side to side as the sheep ran through. She couldn’t work out how on
earth he could tell the difference between the sexes. They were all
just big balls of wool with legs to her untrained eyes. Except of
course, for the lambs that were little balls of wool, but he wasn’t
sorting them, so that didn’t matter.

They took a short lunch, not a minute too
soon. Mrs. Miller had packed some sandwiches, and they all sat in
the shade of the shearing shed. The flock had kicked up a minor
dust storm in the holding pen. Sam shook her hair and dirt rained
down. She didn’t dare think of the state she must be in, but
considering the state Daniel was in, she had a pretty good idea of
what she looked like. Her skin probably looked several shades
darker now, that was for sure. Sam dusted her clothing off before
sitting on the floor and leaned against the metal wall of the
building. It felt good to sit down for a bit.

A little while later, after lunch, they had
finished sorting the sheep into the two pens. The dust was almost
unbearable by this time and it had started to get hot. Sam looked
over at Daniel. His face and hair was covered in dust, which made
the liquid blue of his eyes stand out even more. He cast her a
quick glance, the blank expression he wore earlier was still
there.

“So, how do you separate the rams from the
wethers?” Sam asked Mr. Miller as they were all leaning on the
railing, looking over the pipe rail at the sheep.

“Well, funny you should ask that,” he
replied, his lips curving into a mischievous smile aimed directly
at his young ranch hand. “
You
have to get in there and walk
them out.”

“Yeah, right,” Sam scoffed, thinking he was
joking. Her expression changed from one of jest to utter disbelief
when he looked back at her with his critical eye.

“You’re not joking, are you?” she
mumbled.

“I don’t joke about work,” he said
sternly.

Should’ve known that was coming,
she
thought with chagrin.

“So, Sam. Let’s see how good of a ram catcher
you are.” He pointed to the sheep. “In you go.”

Sam’s eyebrows just about took flight from
her forehead.

“Me?” Sam squeaked, looking over at the huge
male sheep with long, curly, very dangerous looking horns. “Surely,
you don’t expect me to get in there and catch rams, do you?” she
asked, trepidation prevalent in her voice.

“Absolutely, I do.” Mr. Miller made a
dismissive gesture with his hand. “Go on. Let’s see what you’re
made of.”

Sam looked at Daniel to see if he was going
to jump to her defense. But then again, why should he? She had made
it clear to him that all she was was an employee of his parents.
She wasn’t really surprised when his expressionless eyes eventually
looked at her and said nothing. Her stomach dropped and she
swallowed hard.

Well, this was just great, she thought as she
put a foot up on one of the rails. She resigned herself to the fact
that she was going to make a complete idiot of herself in front of
two men. No change there then. She took a deep breath, swung her
leg over the fence, and started to push her way through the sea of
four-legged puffballs.

As she was walking away from the guys, she
could hear Mr. Miller’s condescending voice say to Daniel. “This
should be good for a laugh, hey, son?”

She didn’t hear Daniel reply.

The clumsy blonde looked around the pen and
counted four rams in amongst all the wethers. They weren’t hard to
pick out due to the dangerous looking curly things protruding from
either side of their heads.

The sheep scurried all around her, trying as
best as they could to get out of her way. The ram she was
approaching, however, was slightly bolder and did not run away as
she moved closer. It was now or never she decided, and made a dash
for it. She wasn’t sure how she did it, but the next thing she
knew, she had a hand on either horn and was straddling a poor
unsuspecting ram.

“I did it!” she shouted in victory, thrusting
her hands in the air as you do when you’ve just triumphed over
adversity. It didn’t take long for her to realize this was possibly
not the best course of action to take. The ram saw its chance for
freedom and took it. Sam grasped for his horns, again, trying
desperately to rectify the foolish mistake she had just made, but
it was too late. The hapless jillaroo caught one of his horns just
as he made a bolt for freedom through her legs, pulling her off
balance and face first in the dirt. The air was forced from her
lungs with a resounding “oomph.”

Sam fleetingly thought that at this juncture,
any normal person would have let go, but for some unknown reason
she didn’t. She started to get dragged through the dirt and other
sheep by the ram that turned out to be much stronger than he
looked.

“Let go!” she heard someone cry in the
distance. Her brain must have been a tad befuddled because, for
some inexplicable reason, she was still holding on.

“Sam, for God’s sake. LET GO!” It was
Daniel.

As she was being dragged around the corner in
the pen, she vaguely remembered the ram’s foot making contact with
her mouth. She heard a crack, saw stars. She let go.