Beneath The Surface

Chapter Five

She opened her eyes and focused her eyes on the clock. It was seven and the room was still dark. The deluge of rain hadn't lessened and Olivia rolled over and groaned.

Another day of feeling like a prisoner.

The sound of a car engine induced her to get up and peer out the window. She could see Travis's car making its way down the paddock, spitting up red mud from it's rear wheels and being chased by his three dogs.

What was she supposed to do today? She couldn't hang her clothes outside to dry. There was no TV or computer to pass the time.

She made herself a coffee and sat at the dining table, tapping her pen against her notepad.

Her to-do list was looking rather empty and it grate don her nerves. One of her work colleagues had once said that her obsession with creating to-do lists made her border-line OCD, and Olivia hadn't realised just how accurate that accusation had been until now.

She quickly jotted down: Be miserable, then she put a tick beside it. At least that was something.

After showering and washing her hair, she styled it and applied her makeup. Just because she was living on a farm full of animals didn't mean she had to look like one.

Within the hour she had rinsed the mud from the few items of clothing that had been a little too close to the gaps in her suitcase and had strung them up everywhere in the house that she could find a spot.

She had even bent a few of the hooks on her wire coat-hangers to hang them from the rafters under the roof of the verandah. Everything would need to be dry-cleaned as soon as possible, but that could take days before that was possible, so hopefully Travis would have a washing machine she could borrow soon.

Olivia tried to fill in time by filing her nails, brushing her hair, and moisturising her body with her coconut body butter. Once she had grown tired of that she resorted to reading over the Coleman's contract, then she read through it again. And again.

She had never been so bored in her life. What on earth did farmers do to pass the time? She couldn't even browse Facebook, or check out her follower's pictures on Instagram.

She wanted to call the police to see if they'd had any luck locating her wallet and phone today, but was too scared to even go near Travis's house after what had happened yesterday.

She picked a book from the bookcase entitled Colouring Your Home and strolled out to the verandah to sit on one of the chairs and read. A copy of Vogue and a hazelnut latte with biscotti would have been preferred, but she had little choice.

She had never been interested in home décor. Her little apartment back in Sydney wasn't big enough to swing a cat, but it was close to work.

The rain thundered on the tin roof and Olivia tucked her foot beneath her as she sat and skimmed through the book. After she finished her eyes were drawn to the large shed in the distance. There appeared to be some kind of holding yard to the right, and stables to the rear-left.

With weather like this she couldn't even explore the property.

Something cool with an almost plastic texture moved against her ankle and she leaned forward and looked down. Olivia let out a piercing scream as she saw the olive-brown coloured snake slither past.

She jumped up onto her chair and almost toppled backwards. Her reaction startled the snake who retreated to the nearest post and began to climb.

Olivia pressed herself against the wall and felt her heart racing. She had heard about brown snakes before and knew that just one of their bites could produce enough venom to kill.