A Bush Christmas by Margareta Osborn

the life of me think what,’ she called.
    That stopped him. He slowly spun back and formed a mirror of her own stance, back straight, arms folded, and square chin in a belligerent pose. Then he spoke in a deceptively mild voice. ‘Those rabbits you appear so fond of are responsible for the severe gully erosion in the paddock beyond that fence line they were living on …’
    Jaime could feel her mouth opening and closing. Erosion? She’d seen erosion around the creeks with her dad when they’d been fishing. It made a terrible mess. Took hundreds of years to repair itself. And looking at Stirling’s face she had a feeling this explanation was about to make her feel a whole lot worse.
    â€˜â€¦ and Valerie has spent thousands upon thousands of dollars fencing out that gully and many others like it on Polly’s Plains and we have been revegetating them to try and arrest the erosion, but your bunnies keep eating the new trees as fast as we can plant them.’
    Geez, why did he have to make it all sound so plausible?
    â€˜And what’s more, shooting them, in my opinion, is one hell of a more humane way to exterminate wild rabbits than what can be a painful, drawn out death from a virus like Calici …’
    He had her there.
    â€˜â€¦ so I suggest, Mizz JJ Hanrahan, you get your facts right first before you go wasting your precious tears on pests and vermin. Goodnight.’
    Stirling McEvoy about-faced and stormed down the path, leaving Jaime staring after him.
    She looked up to the stars and mumbled, ‘Well, Dad, I sure as heck put my foot in that one.’
    As the motorbike rumbled to life and took off, Buster gave one short sharp bark. Jaime couldn’t help but wonder if the dog was saying goodbye or … ‘ So there!’

Chapter 6
    The next morning, Jaime had resolved that she needed to apologise to Stirling.
    But the best way to do that was …?
    She ruminated over that thought in the garden while she weeded, trimmed and hacked at the overgrown bushes causing her the most angst.
    She had now worked out why her father spent so much time in his backyard pottering. It was therapeutic and allowed you to think of virtually nothing for hours on end, except from where the next weed was to be pulled.
    But therapeutic or not, by morning tea time she knew she had to make amends with the man she’d wrongly accused of a meaningless mass (bunny) murder. She decided to take a drive in the Suzuki to his house, in the hopes of catching him at home having a cuppa. She might even get a look inside his house this time if she was lucky.
    She was in luck. He wasn’t having a drink but he was outside hooking some rope-like stuff around his verandah posts. As she drove up Buster barked hello and came running up, sniffing at the Suzuki tyres before letting fly with a stream of piss.
    Stirling yelled ‘ BUSTER!’ before whistling the dog back to his side where he was now wrestling with metres and metres of long white strings. ‘Give me a hand here, will you?’
    Jaime looked around but then realised this instruction was for her. She shook her head and grinned. Men. They were an amazing species. While women tossed and turned all night, a recent argument playing back and forth through their minds, dissecting who said what, when and where, men just forgot all about it and moved on.
    Although when she finally stepped up onto Marble Man’s verandah, the taut look on his rugged face yelled loud and clear that this man hadn’t forgotten. Not one little word.
    He held out the end of a string. ‘Pull this gently, will you, so I can get this whole roll unravelled in one piece.’ She took the end offered and started to walk backwards. She didn’t even register what she was holding, so intent was she on what she wanted to say.
    â€˜I’m sorry.’ The words came out all rough and squeaky. She cleared her throat. She’d always found it hard