Second Chance in the Outback - Chapter 5
Grace’s phone buzzed as she walked from the staff quarters to Jamie’s cottage the next morning. Fishing it out, she glanced at the screen and pressed it to her ear. ‘Charlie, I’m sorry about last night.’
She and her bestie were supposed to have met for a game of pool at the rec club, but Grace had cried off.
Kings Reach station was one of the largest cattle stations in Australia, but it was also one of the most remote, located as it was in the far north-west of the country. The King family had donated a building adjacent to the staff mess hall for the workers’ use. The workers had banded together to create a recreation club. It was a place to meet and socialise—to play pool, darts or cards—and to have a drink and grab a bite to eat if you didn’t fancy the night’s offering in the mess hall.
With Charlie working at Kings Reach for the season, and knowing how much she was missing her family, Grace had been doing her best to keep Charlie occupied. Something was troubling her friend, though she didn’t yet know what.
‘You sounded out of sorts,’ Charlie said. ‘I thought I’d check in. And before you say anything, I know we didn’t speak, but your text sounded out of sorts.’
She couldn’t help but smile. Typical Charlie. She might be preoccupied, but it wouldn’t stop her from noticing everything going on around her. It’s what made her one of the best stockwomen in the Kimberley.
‘Is everything okay?’ Charlie asked now.
She hesitated. ‘This client I’m taking care of for Fitz... It’s Jamie.’
Two beats of silence sounded. ‘Not that Jamie?’
‘Yep, that Jamie.’
‘Okay, wow. You could tell Fitz you’ve changed your mind. Ask him to find someone else.’
‘If I want to do this for a living—’ and that was the plan ‘—I’ll need to be able to work with difficult clients. Not that Jamie’s being difficult. It’s just a bit…awkward.’
The expression on Jamie’s face yesterday, before she’d left, rose in her mind now. He’d looked so…sad. Her heart started to hammer and she lifted her chin. ‘But I’m going to dispel the awkwardness and make his stay fun.’
‘If anyone can do that, Amazing Gracie, it’s you. But now I have to ask…’
Grace broke through the Grevilleas and came to a dead halt. Jamie sat beneath the cottage’s bull-nose veranda, his long legs sprawled out like an invitation, the steam from the mug in his hand rising. He had his eyes closed and his face lifted to the sun. An invisible hand tightened about her chest, squeezing the air from her lungs.
‘Is he still as gorgeous as you remember?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Absolutely.
Jamie’s eyes opened and fixed on her in a heartbeat. Boom-boom! That was her heart. ‘Gotta go, Charlie.’