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  There wasn’t a shimmer of humidity in the air, so the Fire Danger Index would be in the extreme category. As the day went on, it was almost certain the FDI would reach a reading of catastrophic. Every farmer within the Merriwell Bay shire would be on high alert.

  As a precaution, the lawns around the house would need to be dampened. Brianna ran outside and turned on all the taps. She heard the pump kick in, and the sprinklers gurgled and spluttered a couple of times before water burst from them, raining droplets onto the thirsty lawn. A gust of warm wind buffeted her face and for a moment she wished Caleb could be at home today. He was steady and calm, never panicking in a crisis, while she seemed always to be filled with anxiety and adrenalin. Since she’d joined the volunteer fire brigade she’d had to teach herself to remain calm and make decisions under pressure, but for Caleb it seemed to come naturally, perhaps because he always had to think on his feet in the courtroom.

  Caleb would know what had to be done on a day like this. He had grown up on a farm, until his parents had gone bankrupt after four bad seasons and a large stock theft that hadn’t been covered by insurance. He understood how a farm was run and what life as a farmer entailed, and that was one of the reasons their relationship worked. In the past she hadn’t minded him working in Perth and being away a lot. She had plenty of friends and she was happy in her own company, which was probably why farming suited her. The long-term goal was for Caleb to open his own practice in Merriwell Bay and she’d always said that until then they had to do what was necessary to make the situation work. But these days she wasn’t quite so sure. It was tough parenting two active boys and running a farm without Caleb by her side.

  The high-pitched whistle of the kettle interrupted her thoughts and she made a coffee, taking it outside onto the verandah. A magpie was under the sprinkler, dancing and preening in the droplets, and she made a mental note to tell the boys not to turn off the water today. The birds would need it too.

  Feeling unsettled, Brianna gave herself a stern talking-to. You’ve always managed. Today won’t be any different. But she recognised she was feeling vulnerable. She hated that feeling. And somehow she was blaming Caleb for it. It wasn’t his fault that his high pressure job meant he was away a lot. Being a partner in the firm Martin and McIntyre, he needed to be available for important appointments. A fly-in-fly-out lawyer.

  Sometimes she thought it would be best if they bought a house in Perth and he stayed up there for the whole week, rather than flying home when he had a spare day. Just come home on the weekends. Thankfully, his employers covered his travel costs and his high salary paid for the toys he accumulated. The Toyota was used all the time, as was the four-wheel motorbike, but the Mustang didn’t see the light of day very often. She was glad the farm didn’t have to pay for these things; they’d be bankrupt by now if it did. Brianna pushed thoughts of her husband aside. The first scheduled meeting with all the fire control officers was about twenty minutes away. Peace until then. If the boys stayed asleep.

  The smudge of light in the east was now a golden spotlight on the horizon. The sun would slide into view any moment. The smell of eucalyptus came to her on the breeze. The driveway was lined with gum trees planted by her father, Russell, just after he bought Le-Nue thirty-five years ago. It was an add-on block to the original farm he’d grown up on. Russell had always thought of it as his own—a place for him and his family—whereas the home farm was his father’s. Brianna could just remember walking by his side as he put the seedlings in the ground, covered them with dirt and gave them a long drink from the forty-four-gallon drum he’d rigged up on the back of his ute.

  Her dad.

  Feelings she couldn’t quite name rippled through her. Among them were happiness and love, sadness and pity. She pressed her lips together tightly as she reflected on the changes the last year had brought. Russell was getting older—although his smile was still as bright and sunny as it had been when she was a child, the lines were a bit deeper around his eyes and he seemed to tire more quickly.

  Brianna didn’t want her dad to grow any older. She couldn’t imagine a life without him.

  ‘Mum?’

  Brianna turned around and saw her son, Beau, the younger of ‘the Terrors’, standing in the doorway. The white legs protruding from his boxers looked like matchsticks, as though they might snap at any moment—but looks were deceiving: Beau could run like a cow that had found a gate open into a crop.

  ‘Good morning, sleepyhead,’ she said with a smile and put her mug down so she could hug him.

  ‘It’s hot already.’

  ‘And it’s only going to get hotter, unfortunately. We’re in for a rough day. We’ll have to shut up the house before the sun gets up completely. Can you pull the curtains in the lounge room for me? I’ll make you a Milo.’

  Taking a last deep breath of morning air, Brianna went back inside to the kitchen. Two teaspoons of Milo mixed with cold milk and there was the perfect start to a six-year-old’s day. Her dad had done this for her every morning until she’d gone to boarding school in Year 8. Brianna had only lasted six months there, being desperately homesick. Russell had brought her home and she’d sworn never to leave Le-Nue again. But, following high school, she had left once more to attend agricultural college and study farm management. That was where she and a handsome young lawyer called Caleb had met, while he’d been giving a guest lecture.

  ‘Here you go, Beau,’ she called as she gave the drink one last stir. Just then the windows rattled and a door banged somewhere as a hot breeze swept through the house. Outside, the trees in the driveway were bending towards the ground and there was raised dust in the paddocks.

  She thought through the list of things she might need during the day. Most of it was already in the back of her ute. The firefighting unit, petrol, drip torch and pliers. Her uniform was behind the seat and there were eskies full of water for her to drink. It all needed to be there ‘just in case’.

  She reassured herself that there really shouldn’t be any fires today. Her neighbours had finished harvesting and she was expecting a harvest and movement of vehicle ban to be put in place for most of the shire. That meant no one could go out into a paddock unless it was to check water for stock. No one in the paddocks equalled no fires. That was the way it should work, anyway. Still, there could be a thunderstorm, and lightning could strike the tinder-dry bush, or some idiot could drop a lit cigarette.

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  She turned to her son as he climbed up onto a bar stool at the kitchen bench. ‘What do you think you’re going to do today?’ she asked. ‘It’s going to be too hot to play outside.’ She started to rummage through a bowl sitting on the bench that held all sorts of odds and ends, looking for the Kestrel weather meter, which would help her calculate the FDI. She’d have to take the readings in time for the fire control officers meeting.

  Beau shrugged, busy eating the Milo off the top of the milk. ‘I don’t know. Play with my Lego and build another spaceship.’ He frowned. ‘It’s boring when it gets hot. Can’t we go to the beach?’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Brianna answered, noncommittal. She glanced at the clock again and registered that it was unusual for Trent, the older ‘Terror’, to be sleeping in this late. She hadn’t heard his usual morning noise at all, she realised. Usually he was up before she was, out in the chook pen talking to his girls or playing with the dogs on the front lawn.

  ‘I’ve got to go and take the readings for the Sked this morning,’ she said as her fingers closed around the Kestrel. ‘I’ll only be a few minutes.’ She grabbed her hat and jammed it on her head, stopping only to pull on her boots and take in the worsening weather.

  Fleur McDonald has lived and worked on farms for much of her life. After growing up in the small town of Orroroo in South Australia, she went jillarooing, eventually co-owning an 8000-acre property in regional Western Australia.

  Fleur likes to write about strong women overcoming adversity, drawing inspiration from her own experi
ences in rural Australia. She has two children and a Jack Russell terrier.

  www.fleurmcdonald.com

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