Free Blackpeak Station by Holly Ford Page B

Saturday at this rate.’
    Owen smiled back. ‘No hurry.’
    He probably meant it. It wasn’t just Rex’s reputation and Kath’s food that drew willing workers to Blackpeak these days — to some, a woman in charge of a station was still abit of a novelty, Charlotte knew, and old-timers like Owen relished the chance to see what she was up to. Every day they worked with her and Jen had the makings of a good story.
    Touch wood, though, this season it would just be Zoe keeping the occupants of the Wrightsons tent amused at the next A&P show. Last night, Owen had nearly choked on his beer when she’d asked if she could help with pregnancy scanning the wethers.
    ‘What did I say?’ Zoe had appealed to the table, nonplussed.
    ‘Wethers are male,’ Jen had snapped, looking mortified.
    ‘Oh!’ Owen had wiped his eyes. ‘I would like to see you try, though, love.’
    Then, after dinner, Zoe had gotten on to Kath’s catering plan for the shearing gang. ‘But it’s all meat,’ she’d protested to the kitchen at large, looking the long list over.
    Staring at her, Owen had taken a long, slow swallow of beer. ‘Shearers don’t go too well on grass, love. Believe me, Carr’s tried.’
    Charlotte and Jen had exchanged a quick look of amusement — as much at Owen’s blissful ignorance of the other meaning of ‘grass’, which the odd shearer had in fact been known to go pretty well on, as at his joke — but Zoe had caught it and, instead of laughing Owen off, had chosen to turn sulky.
    ‘You shouldn’t eat red meat more than twice a week,’ she’d declared, her chin in the air.
    ‘You reckon? What’s a bloke supposed to eat the rest of the time, then?’
    ‘Vegetables.’
    ‘What — on their own?’
    ‘There are other proteins, you know. Actually, I try to cook vegan one night a week. Last Thursday I made pad thaiwith spinach and silken tofu. It was really good.’
    ‘Silk and what?’
    ‘It’s a sort of soya bean curd,’ Zoe had explained.
    Owen — and, to be honest, Rex, Kath, Matt and Charlotte herself — had stared at her in horror.
    ‘Oh, for God’s sake. It wouldn’t kill you to eat something different. Something healthy, instead of’ — Zoe had gestured angrily at the bones on the bench — ‘great slabs of dead animal three times a day.’
    There’d been a shocked silence, during which Owen had thoughtfully sipped his beer before declaring, ‘Love, there’s some things worse than dying.’
    Charlotte had had to laugh — everyone had done, even Jen, who’d presumably actually eaten the stuff Zoe was describing. Well, everyone except Zoe, who’d called it a night about then and taken herself off home.
    Poor Zoe. Remembering the look on her face, Charlotte shook her head, then sighed and stretched and finished her beer. That girl really didn’t know how to handle a hard time.
    Snarling and bickering erupted as Carr arrived with his dogs, and was quickly curtailed by a few choice words. By tomorrow, the pack order would be settled. The dogs, like their masters, were there to do a job and knew it.
    ‘That young header of yours is coming along,’ said Carr, earning himself a huge smile from Charlotte.
    ‘Yeah, she’s had a good day.’
    ‘About time you got here,’ teased Jen as Rex arrived, reaching into the chilly bin and handing him a beer.
    ‘You can take the top beat tomorrow, eh, and we’ll see how quickly you get down.’
    Everyone else had another beer to keep Rex company before they all piled into and onto the trucks and headed home. Kath and Zoe had dinner waiting for them. Thankfully there was no tofu in sight, and neither Charlotte nor anyone else, she thought, looking round, was disappointed by the meal.
    ‘Oh, Rob called for you, Charlie,’ Kath remembered, slicing into a giant lemon meringue pie.
    Charlotte squirmed. She hadn’t been avoiding Rob — not exactly. It was just so much easier to forget she had anything to worry about when he wasn’t there to remind