The Breaker (Erotic Country #1.) (5 page)

He took the wheel and
fired up the truck. ‘We are so late,’ he said.

They drove for an hour in silence.
Sophie stared out the window with tight lips and folded arms, watching the
endless flat paddocks roll by. She pointed to the cut timber archway over the
gateway of Bangaloo Creek Station as it came into view. ‘On the left,’ she
grumbled.

The entire crew were
waiting for them, unable to yard up the cattle without the horses.

‘She got us lost,’ Brett
said, jerking his thumb at her when they jumped from the truck.

‘Yeah right,’ smirked
Mick. The two cow-hands grinned stupidly and she could have slapped them both. She
had been driving out here once a week for the past two years. The two
properties were on the same road. Not much chance of getting lost along the
way.

Brett moved to the
side of the truck and began lowering the ramp. She noticed Mick and his
side-kicks staring at the front of her shirt.

‘What?’ she demanded.

Mick pointed to her
collar. ‘Your shirt,’ he said in an amused voice. ‘It’s buttoned up all wrong.’
He walked off with his two little shadows sniggering behind him.

She looked down in
horror.
Fucking
Brett!
He’d as good as hung a sign on her to tell
all the boys that they’d been shagging. Which they hadn’t. Well, not quite.

She stormed around to
the side of the truck just as the ramp hit the ground and Brett scrambled up
into the back. She marched up after him. ‘You did that on purpose,’ she hissed
at him. ‘You skewed my buttons.’

‘Look out,’ he said,
as he unpinned the divider and led the first gelding out. The horse nearly
bowled her over as it tried to turn around inside the truck.

‘I hate you,’ she
yelled after him, not giving a damn whether anyone heard her or not.

Outside, Jim was in a
flap. ‘About time you got here. We were about to send out a search party.’ He
scrambled up the truck ramp and began helping to unload the horses.

Sophie immediately put
her back to him and began untying the next horse, so he couldn’t see the mess
her shirt was in.

‘One of the horses
travelled badly,’ she lied, although she didn’t know why she bothered. Someone,
without a doubt, would tell him about her shirt later in the day. She passed the
rope to Jim without turning around.

‘I want you and Brett
to check the water points. Ride one, lead one. Swap halfway. Show him the
entire property – the gates, bores, troughs, holding yards, everything. We’ll
work the other two horses in the pens.’

‘Okay.’

Jim took the gelding
and led it down the ramp and she quickly fixed up her shirt. She untied the
next horse and passed it to Brett, who took it out and handed it to one of the
waiting Bangaloo boys.

Sophie got the horses
saddled and kept the touchiest one for herself. Iceman, she called the big
black gelding, because he had a cold back and bucked like a demon. He was a
rough-looking horse, with his mane half scratched out from itch and a dunny
brush for a tail, but she loved the spirit in him.

As she girthed him
tight, she noticed his back hump and his tail clamp down tight between his back
legs. She grinned. This would be fun.

‘Get on him in the
yard,’ said Jim, leading the chestnut past. He knew what the black horse was
capable of. And she was glad that he also knew what she was capable of. He
never treated her like a girl, which she appreciated. ‘Better put a helmet on,’
he added.

She took one from the
dog boxes under the truck and jammed it on her head. By the time she got to the
yard, most of the hands were resting a foot on the rail, waiting. Iceman was
always a crowd puller. She noticed Brett glance over his shoulder.

One of the hands closed
the gate after her. She threw the reins over Iceman’s neck and brought his nose
to his ribs. Without hesitating, she stuck her boot in the stirrup and swung
her leg over. Iceman stood like a statue while she found her other stirrup. His
back, as tight as a drum, arched up under her. He felt like a bomb that was about
to go off. She took a deep breath and prepared to release his head. As soon as
she did, she knew it would be on.

She turned his head.
Iceman snatched the reins, stuck his head between his knees and honked like a
donkey. He exploded into a furious bucking frenzy, with all four legs off the
ground, landing on his fronts and then switching to his hinds before lurching
into the air and kicking his legs out behind her head somewhere. Sophie sat
deep in the saddle and rode every buck.

‘Stick him, Soph,’ Jim
called out. She heard the smile in his voice.

There was much hooting
and hollering and Sophie revelled in it, riding until the big horse smoothed
out and cantered around the ring with only the occasional skip of his hind
legs.

Too quickly the show
was over, but she knew it was moments like this that earned her that respect
with the men. She rode the puffing gelding out of the yard. Young Pete held the
gate open for her and she found Brett waiting with her second horse. He handed
her the reins. She took them without a word and led the second horse alongside
Iceman. Brett still didn’t know who he was dealing with.

* * * * *

The country was endlessly flat – so
flat the Bangaloo boys reckoned that on a clear day they could see the backs of
their own heads. The black gelding danced beneath Sophie and she ignored it,
knowing he would soon tire and get bored. She was right. By the time they left
the home paddocks and got to the legume pastures, the horse had settled and the
bay she led plodded through the rows of saddle-high saplings, his hooves
occasionally clacking on upturned rocks.

Brett rode in silence.
She was glad that he wasn’t much of a talker. She loved the serene openness of
this country, the carolling birds and raucous cicadas. The music of it was too
beautiful to be spoiled by words.

They rode to every
gate, criss-crossing fields and checking on cattle as they went. They dodged an
angry Micky bull in some of the scrubbier country and stopped to fix a broken
ball-cock on one of the troughs. Then they got into sparser country, with the
grass clumps fewer and further apart. They rode on as the sun beat down hotter
and hotter, casting a shimmer across the land. Sophie rolled down her sleeves
and lifted her collar around the back of her neck to keep the burning sun off
her skin.

Towards noon, the
horses began to lag. Sophie searched for the next bore, so they could stop and
water them. She saw the windmill in the distance. ‘There’s our smoko break,’
she said, pointing to the horizon. Brett nodded and pushed his tired horse on.

The trough was a deep cast
iron bathtub on four clawed feet. It had three dead rats in it and the ball-cock
was bent up at a useless angle. There was another more functional concrete one
about 200 metres away.

Sophie stared at the
beautiful old tub. ‘I’m going to clean it out,’ she said. ‘Can you ride over
and check that one?’ She pointed to a lone tree in the distance. Brett rode
away without a word and Sophie opened the pump box to get a bucket and a
scrubbing brush. She scooped out the dead rats and walked a good distance away
before flinging them under a saltbush. She took the brush and, using the hose, scrubbed
down the sides until they were immaculate – the pale blue enamel was still in
mint condition. She replaced the plug and turned on the tap to let it fill. By
the time the water level flowed over one of the sides, it looked so inviting
that she dunked her head in and blew bubbles out of her nose, shaking her head
and revelling in the cool, crystal clear water.

She flung her wet hair
over her back and gasped as the water ran down her back. At the other trough,
she saw Brett dismount and seemingly adjust something. She unbuttoned her shirt
as she watched him work and began to strip, kicking off her boots and stepping
out of her jeans. When she was totally naked, she backed up to the old bathtub
and let herself collapse into the water, its silky coolness washing over her
bare skin. She inhaled, closed her eyes and put her head back.

What an insane couple
of days it had been. She lay there, thinking about Brett, enjoying the peaceful
sounds of the bush. Then she heard his horse’s feet walk back and halt nearby. His
boots hit the ground and then there was silence.

‘Coming in?’ she asked
without opening her eyes.

‘No.’ His voice was
quiet.

‘Why not?’

There was a pause.
‘Because you look so perfect.’

She rolled her head to
one side, half opened her eyes and smiled lazily.

He stood with both
arms resting over the horse’s shoulders. Its saddle had been taken off and its
back was slick with sweat. His eyes rested on her and she noticed all traces of
meanness were gone. They were soft, appreciative, almost reverent.

She closed her eyes
again and tried to imagine his fist around his cock under crisp white sheets.
Then she gave herself what she’d needed all day, sliding her hand down her
inner thigh and finding her spot. It was a hard, angry nut, still bitching from
the morning. Still pounding from yesterday. Bound with tension that ached to be
released. She worked it slowly, kneading and massaging, until something
beautiful flowed through every vein in her body. It ran up the insides of her thighs
and exploded between her legs. Her hips pushed up and she cried out with
pleasure. She gazed at him shamelessly as the aftershocks spasmed through her
body.

This time he shut up.
She closed her eyes again and felt her body go heavy in the cool water.

‘You’re quite a girl,
Sophie,’ Brett said softly and she liked the way her name sounded on his lips.

She smiled. ‘I am,
aren’t I?’

She heard the rustle
of fabric and a zipper and knew he was undressing. His hand took hers, pulled
her gently out of the water and he slipped into the bath tub behind her. Then
he pulled her back down to lie on top of him. There was no raging hard on or
raspy breath. His arms curled around the top of the bath and she leaned her
head back on his chest, loving the feel of him beneath her. His legs hung
ridiculously over the sides and hers, long and brown, rested over his.

They lay still, with
only the quiet sound of lapping water, distant crooning cattle and a soft
breeze rustling the leaves overhead. Even the birds seemed to be having a
siesta. The sky was blue all over and the sun burned ferociously through the
leaves, sprinkling dancing dappled shadows over her skin.

She ran her hand along
his powerful forearms, inspecting his small scattered tattoos. They were mostly
insignificant: small crosses, some initials and various symbols that held no
meaning for her. ‘Anything I should know about these?’ she asked, tracing her
fingers around them.

‘Like what?’

She shrugged. ‘They
mean anything? Why’d you get them done?’

He shrugged back. ‘Just
pissed and stupid.’

‘In prison?’

He snorted. ‘They’re
not prison tatts.’ He paused, and then mumbled. ‘Not those ones anyway.’

She rolled over to
face him and realised she hadn’t seen him without clothes on yet; she had only
fantasised about what he would look like. His body was beautiful, strong and
toned and developed way beyond lanky teenage sinew. He was big, built, with
broad shoulders and serious guns. She brought her knees up, sat up on his tummy
and looked down at his chest. His skin was tanned beneath a small tuft of black
chest hair.

‘Do you do weights or
something?’ she asked, putting her hands on his wrists and running her hands up
his forearms, around his elbows and over his guns.

‘Just to stay sane,’
he answered, with his hands flopping over the sides of the tub. ‘Won’t need to,
now that I’m working again.’

Over his heart was
what she guessed was his prison tatt. Small green letters, in upper case,
spelled the name
SAM
.

She ran a thumb over
it and he wrapped his large hand around hers, stopping her. ‘Don’t spoil this,’
he said. ‘Not now.’

She looked at his face
and saw searing pain.

‘She wasn’t a
girlfriend, if that’s what you need to know. She was my daughter.’

‘Was?’

He didn’t answer, but
the softness in his dark eyes nearly broke her heart. She leaned down and
kissed him on the mouth, her tongue lingering where she had split his lip only
the day before. He kissed her back and then wrapped his arms around her neck
and pulled her close, breathing into her hair. She felt his chest rise and then
he exhaled fully, letting all the tension release from inside him.

‘How’d I end up with
you on my lap?’ he muttered quietly.

She curled into his
chest, with her cheek on his shoulder. ‘Just lucky, I guess.’

And together they lay
like that, still, while her mind whirled with questions. What happened to his
daughter? Why was this man so angry at the world one minute and then so tender
the next? Why did he spend four years in prison? And why was she lying naked on
top of him in the middle of nowhere without knowing the answers to those
questions?