Outback Native (A Woman Down Under, #4) by K'Anne Meinel

Author:K'Anne Meinel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Outback Native, Outback, Aborigine, Historical Lesbian Romance, Australia
Publisher: Shadoe Publishing
Published: 2019-10-24T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

It was about a week later that several men came riding in hell bent for leather and gathering help to fight a fire in one of Twin Station’s northern paddocks. Alinta watched as Mel took a dozen men with her down the track, rushing to help fight the fire. She left word that anyone that could be spared was to head to the fire to help.

Alinta worried while Mel was gone with her men, but there was nothing she could do. She could faintly see the smoke on the horizon, but it was so far away that it looked like a mere wisp of a cloud. The heat shimmered as she gazed frequently towards the track and out over the land, looking towards where the fire fighters would return along this path. Holding Ainia, she glanced around at those left at the home paddock. They were busily going about their duties, and she noticed they too glanced frequently towards the track, wondering when the others would return or if they would receive word.

Mel and the men who had gone to fight the fire returned several days later, dusty and very dirty. The men either took advantage of the stopped-up creek and the pond it had made or headed for the bathhouse connected to the barracks. Two of them lived in the married stockmen’s homes and had their own bathtubs, and Mel returned to the station house to immerse herself in the tub in their bathroom off the master bedroom. Alinta could understand her enjoyment of the tub. She had learned how delightful sharing a tub with her husband could be. She now kept herself very clean, using it because she knew her husband liked her cleanliness, and she appreciated the benefits she received in return.

* * * * *

“I swear, having that metal on the roof makes it hotter in the barns and sheds,” Mel worried as the heat continued to intensify.

Alinta listened to her husband and glanced at the valuable metal that had been used throughout their building process. She thought her husband must be very rich to be able to afford these sheets of the corrugated iron that had been painted green and placed on the various buildings. It looked attractive and shed rain very well, but the Aborigine, whose father had impressed upon her the value of this white man’s stone, couldn’t help but wonder at her husband’s complaint about so valuable a commodity. The heat would always be there—it always had been—and all they could do was wait for the weather to change and the rains to come. The sandstorms that came blasted against the buildings, and Mel reduced Alinta’s chores, taking on the egg gathering in the poultry pens, so her wife wouldn’t have to be out in the storms. Alinta was amused since no one had ever worried about such things where she was concerned before.

They found that going down into the hidden valley sometimes gave them a little relief from the horrible, hot winds.

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