“How long will that be?” She looked at him with her lips set in a tight line.
“Three or four weeks at the most.”
“No, I want to go now.” She pouted her lips and turned, showing him her back, straight and determined.
“I can’t go now; you know that. The shearers are booked, and we need to do the crutching, or we’ll end up with fly strike.”
“If you loved me, you’d put me before your smelly sheep.”
“Things have to work on a schedule out here. I can’t just up and go whenever I want to. Farming’s like that.”
“Well. That says it all, doesn’t it? Your farm comes before your future wife.” She picked her purse up from the table and took out her mobile phone. “Rodney said he’d give me a lift back to the city. I’m going. You can send the rest of my stuff later.”
“Are you serious? You’re going back to town with that sleazy tractor salesman?”
“Yes, I am. You won’t give me what I want, and this place has lost its appeal. Not that it had much to start with. I’m a city girl at heart, Nathan, and I’m afraid I can’t change that. It’s the way I am. Good-bye.” She picked up her suitcase and walked down the back stairs and out of the yard.
Nathan stood, shocked and gutted. He hadn’t even realized Eliza was unhappy. She’d never said a word until now. He heard a car pull into the driveway, a door slam, and then she was gone.
“This here is the record of the shearing. See how many sheep this place was running even five years ago?” Tom gave her the figures before Libby could sneak off to bed. “If we could get a couple of hands, we could bring it up to those numbers again.”
She flipped through the pages of the book, thinking as she read the numbers. Over the last ten years, they had gone from running 8,000 sheep, to what they brought in today. There would be a mere 1,300 if they were lucky.
“Want to tell me how we could go about it?” She kept her gaze on his weather-beaten face.
He sat back in his chair and ran through what he thought was a good plan. She would have to speak to Aaron, but he’d said they had money for certain expenses. Libby had some money put away as well, and if she had to, she would use it to get the farm viable again. She wasn’t going to walk away without putting up a bloody good fight but she didn’t want to lose what little she had either.
“What do you think?”
“I like it. We should do up a plan on paper and see. I mean, after we sort out what we have and what we have to get rid of, we can approach Aaron and talk to a...what do you call them, stock agent?”
“Yeah, you’ll probably meet Jonas at the dance. He’s the local agent around here,” Tom explained. “He’ll be there with everyone else in town. It’s one of the best places to do business, believe it or not. We might even find a couple of helpers too. We can at least put out the word we’re hiring.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” Libby mused over the possibilities of restocking the station. “What about the cattle? How are we placed with them?”
“We could use some new blood, to tell you the honest truth. I don’t much like the old bulls we have, and if you really want to improve the beef you have, you should try what Nathan is doing.”
Libby sat up in her seat. She bristled again at the thought of the man calling her cow’s mongrels, and to think she let him sit and drink wine on her steps without choking him for his ignorant behaviour. “What’s he doing?”
“His cows are Drought Master, same as most of yours, but he’s crossing them with Brahmin bulls. They say the meat is better, and there’s more of it for no extra work. I think he’s onto something to be honest. They’re being dubbed a super breed by those in the know.”
“What would we have to do though?” Libby frowned and leaned forward, eager to hear everything.
“Get rid of the old bulls you have and replace them with a least a couple of good Brahmins. They’re expensive, no doubt about it, but you can get a decent price for the steers and bulls you have. You don’t stand to lose anything by trying, Libby.”
“Can we deal with the sheep first and then talk about it some more?” One thing at a time, or she’d lose the plot. Libby had so much to learn and doubted it she could take it all in at once.
“Sure. Now I’m going to take this old body to bed.” Tom ruffled Holly’s hair as he passed her. “I’ll wake you up to feed those young’uns in the morning.”
“Night, Tom. Thanks for today.”
They watched him head to his quarters before Libby stood up and pulled Holly to her feet. “Bed for you, baby.” She pushed the sleepy little girl inside.
Chapter 5
Libby fell into a troubled sleep. The last thing she’d wanted was to have Nathan in her face before she went to bed. It was bad enough she fantasized about him during the day, but going to bed tonight was going to be difficult with visions of him haunting her dreams. Twisting and restless, she became tangled in the sheets as
