The Misdeeds of Sadie Quinn: the Good Life, #3 by Merren Tait

Author:Merren Tait
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Merren Tait

I didn't want to go to work that evening. I couldn't find it within me to be bothered with the petty demands of the social drinker, and there was no way I was equipped to tolerate the inevitable jokes about Poppy's one-man show.

When I arrived and saw the stock truck lying on its side in the pub's car park, I knew it was a mistake to not have called in sick.

Muffled ovine chatter hummed through the closed back doors. I gritted my teeth, sealed my nostrils with my index finger and entered the pub looking like a C-grade Hitler impersonator.

Everyone turned expectantly, except for the sheep. They nibbled on hay that lined the floor with single focus and filled every available gap between the stools and tables.

I took two steps towards the bar and skidded on a pile of sheep droppings. The "for fuck's sake" that on any other day might have been issued under my breath, fired off my tongue in a loud volley.

Manawa's head snapped up from whatever she'd been doing on the service bench. "What happened to you? You look homicidal."

"This," I said, pointing at the sea of woolly backs, "is the most stupid thing I've ever seen. Whose genius idea was it to fill a room people eat and drink in with shitting and pissing animals?"

Manawa shrugged. "Mitchell's."

God love Mitchell. "I've had enough arsing sheep antics for one day," I said, shocking myself into silence at how much like Poppy I sounded.

"The men are all under strict instructions to scrub this place to within an inch of its life once the show's over. I've brought in a stock whip to make sure they pull finger in a timely manner."

As a ewe emptied her bladder onto a thin patch of hay in front of us, I said, "You must really love him."

She threw the cloth she'd been cleaning the bench top with into the sink and leaned against the counter, crossing her arms. "You have no idea."

I cast my eyes around the room. The packed-in, wool-bound bodies had raised the temperature a couple of humid degrees, which had the effect of amplifying the smell. An acrid mix of the sweetness of lanolin, the nose-hair curling stew of bladder and bowel contents, and the faintest hint of armpit.

Nobody in their right minds would have agreed to accommodating this. "I have a pretty good idea." The ewe's stream of urine continued and the hay lifted off the floor in the spreading pool. "You could have at least told me to wear my gumboots."

"I gave Callum a head's up. I hoped it would be over by the time you got here."

"I hope you put in a 1-1-1 call," I muttered.

Manawa raised a hand to my cheek. "I wish I could say you're cute when you're angry, but you look all Gordon Ramsay, and Lord does that man have a face like a smacked arse. Why don't you clear some tables? That way you don't have to talk to people and I might keep most of my patrons for more than one drink.

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