in a shimmery, clingy dress, the room backlit by candles, her hair a soft halo around her head.
Tiff had opened herself to him that night, revealed her hopes and dreams, and he had turned away. But he hadn’t wanted to hurt her.
Jack thought about Samuel, about the furious interchange yesterday, and the one prior to it, the same night Jack had come here to join Tiffany for dinner.
If he had realised sooner, he would never have allowed…
Well, it was too late now—in more ways than even just that. He rubbed at the numb spot beneath his arm and forced the memories away. All of the memories.
As Tiffany made sandwiches, Jack talked about some of the legal work he’d done while overseas. Nothing specific, just generalities to fill the silence, but her eyes shone with interest anyway. He soaked that interest up and hoarded it close—because at least he could have some things.
‘Did you meet anyone really exciting overseas, Jack?’ She set the plate of sandwiches in the middle of the table, sat, and took the glass of juice he’d poured for her.
They ate in silence for a few moments before she spoke again.
‘Were there lots of business lunches and invitations to people’s homes? Did you go to parties? How did you cope with the language differences?’
Mostly, he had just survived. But he wasn’t about to say such a thing. He recalled something else instead, and smiled. ‘One thing happened. I saw Campbell Cheeses in a delicatessen, and maybe I had a deep patriotic moment or something—I don’t know—but I went totally ape and bought one of everything they had. It took me weeks to eat my way through just the varieties of feta with sun-dried tomato, and that was only the beginning.’
‘I’m glad to know you helped improve our international profile.’ She smiled, and even if it was a little bit forced her hazel eyes shone with warmth and affection for him.
He smiled back, and promised her silently that he would make this work.
All they needed was to focus on the truly important stuff and steer clear of the rest.
‘What on earth?’
It was evening. Tiffany and Jack had done the last of the chores for the day. They were on their way to the cottage when they discovered a geyser shooting into the sky, near the tank that supplied water to her parents’ house.
Tiffany gaped at the sight. This was the last thing she needed. ‘We only started to top that tank up half an hour ago. It shouldn’t have even needed to be checked until after dinnertime.’
‘We have to get this contained before any more water gets wasted.’
Jack made the observation, and they both stepped forward in unison.
The water spurted straight up from a point in the pipe not far from its connection to the tank. Water levels in all the tanks were monitored, and the tanks filled from pipeline water as appropriate. Today, Tiffany had decided they should top this tank up.
‘We’ll have to stop the flow, then try to work out what’s wrong.’ Jack strode to the control source, and swore when he tried to turn it off. ‘I can’t shut it off.’
Tiffany turned for the machinery shed. ‘I’ll get a wrench.’
‘It won’t be any use.’ Muscles flexed in Jack’s back where the shirt stretched tight across his shoulders. He straightened. ‘Something’s given way inside. The mechanism’s wrecked. I can feel it when I try to turn it.’
Tiffany forced her gaze away from Jack’s back and her thoughts to the problem at hand. ‘That’s probably why the pipe burst open. Which means the flow isn’t being regulated as it should be, either.’
Jack nodded. ‘We’ll have to do what we can to block the pipe, and then drive to the main and shut the water off there.’
‘At least it’s only this one pipeline.’ She hurried back towards the spurt of water. ‘It won’t affect the water supply to the milking shed or the water troughs, and the cottage tank is already full.’
But the main was several kilometres away, further into the property, beyond all the groupings of work sheds, which meant they needed to do something about this right now.
A puddle already covered a large area of ground in every direction. Tiffany waded into the muck, gave thanks for her sensible boots even if the gumboots of this morning would have been better, and positioned herself on the non-geysering side of the water flow. Jack quickly joined her, and they examined the pipe more closely.
‘We should be able to close it—or near to.’ His blue eyes locked on hers. ‘Have you got stockings at the cottage? Or anything else stretchy and long enough to tie around?’
‘Um, I have some stockings, and a pair of black stretch leggings from when I went through my yoga phase two years ago.’
‘Great.’ He gave a sharp nod.
‘I’ll get them.’ She hurried to the cottage, helped herself to the required goods, and ran all the way back.
Slightly out of breath, she handed the items to Jack. ‘How will we do this?’
He ran the pairs of stockings through his hands, seemed to realise what he had just done, and stopped abruptly. ‘These are single legs. I thought they’d be put together already. I mean—’
‘You mean pantyhose? I prefer thigh-highs.’ And she had to muzzle herself right now, before she started to explain the pros and cons of ladies’ personal undergarments. That really wouldn’t be a good idea. ‘What do you want me to do?’
He returned the Lycra leggings to her. ‘Tie these around your waist for the moment. If we need them, we’ll use them, but we’ll try the stockings first.’
He positioned himself close to the pipe. ‘We’ll try to get the pipe mostly closed with the stockings. If that doesn’t work, or if it’s not enough, we’ll go for the leggings, as well. I’ll wind the first couple of layers around and then we’ll take an end each and pull as hard as we can.’
It took a few futile attempts before they got the right angle and the right amount of pressure and managed to almost close the split in the pipe. By then Tiffany was soaked from crown to feet. Jack had fared a little better, but water dripped down his face and plastered one side of his shirt against him.
The moment he noticed her gaze on him there, he tugged the shirt away from his body in a movement that was almost protective. He turned away to gather up the couple of stockings they’d dropped in the mud in their haste as they tried to get the leak sealed. ‘Hopefully what we’ve done will hold until we can reach the main and shut it off. We could have driven straight there, but a lot more water would have been lost that way.’
‘I know. It was the right choice.’ She turned towards the machinery shed where the farm vehicles were stored. ‘We can go in the utility truck.’
Jack shook his head. ‘I’ve got a full tool kit in the back of the Jeep. Let’s get back to the cottage and take it. That way we’ll have tools on hand if we run into any further troubles at the main.’
A
