Second Chance At the Ranch

by Maxine Morrey

  ‘G’day.’ Susannah pushed past Nick, putting on her friendliest voice. Nick’s defences flew up. ‘I’m Susannah. You’re Juliet’s sister, aren’t you?’

  Hero shook the hand she was offered. ‘Yes, I am.’ She returned the smile and then glanced at Nick. His face was serious and wary.

  ‘So, you’re staying at the station for a while, I hear?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hero replied, smiling as she placed her purchases in the back of the ute. Nick decided it was time to leave. He had an idea where Susannah was going with her ‘casual conversation’ and it wasn’t anywhere good.

  ‘Come on, we’re late.’ His voice was sharp.

  Hero looked up at him as he stood behind the bleached blonde. He was edgy. Uncomfortable. Nothing like his normal relaxed self. She couldn’t remember anything that they were late for but clearly Nick wanted to leave.

  ‘Well, it was—’

  ‘I was sorry to hear about your accident.’ Susannah interrupted Hero, looking anything but sorry.

  Nick’s insides went cold.

  ‘I read that you were really badly scarred, but you don’t look too bad. I mean, considering …’ Susannah paused, blatantly running her gaze up and down, lingering on the deepest scar on her face, peeking from behind her hair. Hero dug her nails into her palms to stop herself from pulling her hair further around her face as a shield. ‘I guess the media always exaggerate that kind of thing.’

  ‘They—’

  ‘Didn’t your passenger die? Your best friend, wasn’t it? You must feel pretty guilty, you know, as you were driving.’

  ‘Hero. Get in the ute.’

  Hero was still. Just staring at Susannah.

  Nick called again. ‘Hero!’

  She jolted out of her shock, looking up at Nick as he opened the door for her. Her eyes locked on to his and something inside him crumbled as he saw all the pain and confusion there.

  ‘Come on, we’re going home.’ He helped her in, closing the door with a slam. Susannah stood her ground as he stormed past her and around to the driver’s side.

  ‘Doesn’t say much, does she?’ she called after him.

  Nick was too furious to speak. Yanking open the driver’s door, he was already backing the ute out as he pulled it shut. As they drove off, he glanced over at Hero, but she was staring out of the window, lost in her own thoughts and memories. Painful thoughts and memories made raw. Nick gripped the steering wheel tighter, his knuckles showing white.

  ‘I’m really sorry about Susannah.’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’ Her voice was flat. ‘Besides, what she said was true. The papers do exaggerate. It helps sell copy. I dealt with it for long enough.’ She looked away from the window at him and smiled. ‘It’s really not a problem.’

  But Nick had seen the look in her eyes as Susannah politely assaulted her with words and cut her with suggestion. It most definitely was a problem.

  ‘Look—’

  ‘Could we not talk about this anymore? Please? Really, I’m fine.’ Hero changed tack. ‘What’s her problem anyway? Or is she just like that with everyone?’

  ‘Her problem isn’t with you. It’s with me.’

  ‘So why did she …’ The penny dropped. ‘Oh! Well, next time you see her, do me a favour and put her mind at rest. Tell her I’m not a threat to her or anyone. As she so rightly pointed out, although my scars aren’t “too bad”’ – she punctuated the words with air quotes – ‘I hardly qualify for Miss Australia.’

  Nick could quite happily have choked Susannah right at that moment.

  ‘Don’t believe anything Susannah tells you.’

  Hero let out a sigh. ‘Oh, Nick. It’s not a case of believing. It’s a case of accepting. I have to live with the fact that I survived and Anya didn’t. And that it shouldn’t have been that way round. It was my car, and I was driving.’

  Nick shook his head. ‘You can’t keep doing this to yourself. All the witnesses said there was absolutely nothing you could have done. It’s amazing you survived at all!’ His blood chilled as he said the words. In London, Juliet had tracked down the fire crew who had cut her sister from the car, wanting to thank them for everything they had done. They’d told her that, from experience, they really hadn’t expected to find anyone alive in the wreckage.

  ‘Yes, I can. Like she said, it was my car. I was driving. I should have—’

  ‘Should have what?’ Nick’s anger bubbled.

  ‘I don’t know!’ she yelled back. ‘I just …’ She paused, her voice fading until it was even softer than normal. ‘I should have done something.’

  ‘It was an accident, Hero. You have to know that. To believe that. There was nothing you could have done. You were fighting for your own life.’

  Hero looked away. Nick understood that there was nothing he could say that would ease the pain for her. That survivor’s guilt would most likely never leave her entirely, but he hoped that over time, it would at least become less intense. He glanced again. Her reflection showed pain, but no tears.

  Chapter 14

  Hero had been staring out of the window for over half an hour in silence when she turned back to Nick.

  ‘So, is Little Miss Tactful like that to Juliet?’

  ‘Nah. She wouldn’t dare. That sister of yours is a little firecracker when she needs to be.’

  Hero considered that and smiled. Juliet believed in the innate goodness of people, but she wasn’t gullible. It obviously hadn’t taken her long to get the size of Susannah Dagmar.

  ‘So why me?’

  Nick let out a sigh, and stared straight ahead.

  ‘Susannah’s jealous.’

  ‘Jealous? Of what?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Me? I don’t think so! Did you actually hear that conversation?’

  ‘Hero. I saw her watch you walk into Pete and Juliet’s reception that night. She practically turned inside out with envy.’

  ‘That was then.’

  ‘Yes. But she knows that even after everything you’ve been through, you’re still twice the woman she’ll ever be.’

  ‘Yeah right!’ Hero snorted in disbelief. ‘She practically took out my eye with that cleavage. She’s most definitely more woman than I’ll ever be.’

  Nick laughed in spite of himself, his eyes flicking over to Hero and momentarily down to her, much smaller, chest. She caught him and yanked her shirt across.

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Sorry.’ He laughed, giving her a sheepish look. ‘But I meant what I said before.’ His eyes were back on the road.

  ‘I thought you said you weren’t going to be nice to me.’

  ‘I never said that. I said I wasn’t going to lie to you. There’s a difference.’

  ‘So what are you doing now?’

  ‘Telling you the truth. You’re still beautiful, Hero. Inside and out. Whether you believe it or not. Everyone can see it, including Susannah. Which is why she was such a bitch today. Maybe it makes her feel better about herself. I don’t know.’

  Hero studied Nick’s strong jaw line for a moment. ‘Well then, maybe she should try snarfing down a huge bar of chocolate instead. Works for me.’

  They pulled up outside the house and soon each had a small child clinging around their necks. The confrontation of the afternoon was lost within their laughter. But Nick was worried. Hero was still burying her pain.

  ‘See anyone in town?’ Pete asked as the four adults sat on the verandah after dinner.

  A bottle of red wine was on the table and two sleepy children were tucked up in bed. Nick looked across to Hero, but her eyes were faraway, staring out at the paddock to where the last rays of the day’s sun warmed the earth.

  ‘No one special,’ Nick replied non-commitally, busying himself with topping up each of the four glasses. Replacing the cork, he took a sip of the wine. ‘Saw Susannah Dagmar.’

  ‘Oh God! She’s not still after you for another date, is she?’ Juliet laughed, half in disbelief, half in despair.
/>   Juliet had never been able to like the woman. She was shallow and a back stabber in her opinion. And she wasn’t alone in those beliefs. At Juliet’s comment, Hero met his eyes, a question in her own. OK. So, he hadn’t quite told her everything.

  ‘And what did she have to say? Ask you if you were going to the Sullivans’ ball, did she?’

  Susannah had trailed Pete for a few years but when he’d got engaged to Juliet, she switched her attentions to his brother. And there they seemed set to stay. Since his broken engagement, Nick dated plenty but none of it was serious. Susannah obviously figured she’d be the one to change all that. Pete felt a chill run down his spine at the thought of having the woman as a sister-in-law. Living close! Not that that would ever be an issue. Juliet would have been packed and gone before the woman had even stepped in the door. Or more likely, she would just have electrified the property’s entire fence line.

  Nick nodded as he sipped his wine. ‘She’s going with Pat McKenna until she gets a better offer.’

  ‘She won’t. Pat’s a good bloke.’ Pete echoed his brother’s earlier sentiments.

  ‘Too good for her.’

  Pete frowned. ‘You all right, mate?’

  Susannah was a total pain in the backside, and it really was about time she got the message, but Nick didn’t normally let it affect him this much. There was something else. Nick looked up from his glass and met the question in Pete’s eyes, indecision playing on his mind.

  ‘She said … stuff. To Hero.’

  ‘What?’ Juliet exploded.

  Pete put his hand on his wife’s arm. ‘What do you mean?’ Pete glanced at Hero, who was now glowering at Nick.

  ‘It was nothing,’ Hero answered, her tone definitive, hoping that would put an end to the conversation.

  But Juliet wasn’t ready to give up. ‘So what did she say?’

  Hero gave Nick one last shot with her eyes before she answered her sister.

  ‘Honestly, Jules, it was nothing. She said she was sorry to hear about the accident and repeated a few of the things from the papers. That’s all.’ She gave her sister a smile. ‘Not especially tactful but nothing I haven’t heard before, and nothing I can’t deal with. Really.’

  Her tone told them the subject was dropped. Pushing her chair back, she rose. ‘I’m going to go in, if that’s OK?’ Picking up her glass, Hero made her way to the study, stopping to kiss her sister on the cheek as she passed. She avoided looking at Nick completely. When Juliet was sure Hero she’d gone, Juliet pounced on him.

  ‘So what did she actually say, the little bitch? I’m going to kill her!’

  Pete let her rail. He tended to agree.

  ‘Pretty much what Hero said. She did say she was sorry about the accident, but it was the way she said it.’

  ‘Sorry, my arse,’ Pete interjected.

  ‘Exactly. Then she went on about how the papers reported that Hero was really badly scarred and how it didn’t actually look so bad after all. Then she said about Anya dying in the accident and how she must feel guilty because she was driving. All that sort of shit. That was when I shoved Hero in the ute and drove off.’

  ‘Shame you didn’t back over the pneumatic bimbo whilst you were at it.’ Juliet’s normally smiling face was black with thunderous rage. Nick and Pete exchanged a glance before they burst out laughing, in spite of the situation. Juliet’s assault was so ungenerous and so un-Juliet!

  ‘It’s not funny,’ Juliet protested as her husband put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close into a kiss.

  ‘You’re very sexy when you’re angry, do you know that?’ Juliet pretended to bat him off, but her smile shone through.

  ‘Oh, stop it, you!’ She turned back to Nick. ‘How was Hero? Really?’

  Nick drew in a breath. ‘She glossed over it, like she always does but …’ He hesitated, unwilling to burden his sister-in-law with more worries over Hero.

  ‘I want to know,’ she insisted.

  He looked at her squarely. ‘I saw her eyes, Jules. It was enough.’

  Nick knocked on the study door.

  ‘Come in.’

  He turned the handle and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. Hero looked up from the screen of her laptop.

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘You just said “come in”.’

  ‘I didn’t know it was you then. Now I do, I’ve changed my mind. Go away.’

  He made a buzzing noise and put on a cheesy voice. ‘Sorry. I have to take your first answer.’

  Hero glared at him, then dropped her eyes back to the screen. Nick took a seat opposite the desk. Hero surfed for a few more minutes, then looked back up.

  ‘Did you actually want something?’

  ‘I had to tell them.’

  ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘You didn’t. If they had needed to know, I would have told them myself.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t.’

  ‘That’s precisely because they didn’t need to know.’

  ‘They want to know, Hero. They care about you. If someone upset you, they—’

  ‘She didn’t upset me.’ Hero struggled to keep her voice even. She hit the Windows key on the keyboard, clicked on Shutdown and closed the lid of the laptop.

  ‘Don’t walk away on this, Hero.’

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ she replied, picking up her laptop and leaving the room without looking back.

  ‘Right then. That went pretty well, I thought,’ Nick said aloud to the empty room, before eventually following her out. Pete walked by, seeing Hero disappear from the balcony at the top of the stairs, before taking in his brother’s expression.

  ‘She forgave you then?’

  ‘Oh yeah. No worries.’

  ***

  Susannah’s spiteful words were still ringing in Hero’s ears a week later. She had driven over with Nick to the neighbouring property, owned by the Sullivan family. Every year they held a ball. It had been held as a giggle initially years ago but had since become an annual fixture on the district calendar. Hero had kindly been included in the invitation, and Juliet felt her sister really ought to pay a proper visit before the actual day. She was also worried. Hero was still avoiding people, something far easier to do out here, and Susannah Dagmar hadn’t helped.

  Hero had been introduced to the Sullivans at the wedding and they’d met again in town from time to time, but Juliet wanted her sister’s friendship with their neighbours to be everything her own was. Hero hadn’t missed the irony of the situation – she’d spent her whole career socialising at the most exclusive clubs and parties in the world, mixing with actors, racing drivers, billionaires, and other high flyers, and now here she was worrying about meeting a neighbour. How the world had turned.

  ‘Just go with Nick. It’ll be fine,’ her sister reassured her, almost bundling her bodily into the ute.

  And it was fine. More than fine. Sarah Sullivan was a warm, motherly figure who whisked Hero away for lemonade whilst Nick and Sarah’s husband, Bill, went off to discuss station life. Sarah talked and Hero listened, gradually relaxing enough to contribute. Nick smiled when he and Bill rounded the corner of the house to find Sarah and Hero laughing as though they had known each other for years.

  ‘Got time for a beer, Nick?’ Bill asked.

  ‘‘Course he has, haven’t you, love? Sit down.’

  Nick sat and took the cold beer Bill handed him, pleased to see Hero happy. It was the first time she’d really relaxed since the incident in town. Juliet had been right to insist that Hero come with him.

  ‘G’day Nick. You skiving off again?’

  They turned to see Paul, Sarah and Bill’s son striding up the verandah towards them.

  ‘G’day mate.’

  Paul leant down and kissed his mother on the cheek, stopping as he caught sight of Hero sitting opposite. Nick saw the way he looked at her and felt the blood thump in his veins. He took another pull on the beer. Paul was one of his oldest friends. Their lands backed against one another, they
had grown up together and attended the same schools. They shared the same dreams, the same sense of humour, and, apparently, the same taste in women. One in particular had tested their friendship to its limits a few years ago, and although Nick had forgiven Paul for moving in on his girlfriend, it was the kind of thing that was hard to forget entirely.

  Sarah made the introductions. ‘Paul, you remember Juliet’s sister, Hero, from the wedding? She’s staying with them for a while.’

  Paul swung a glance at Nick, grinning. ‘Lucky them. It’s very nice to see you again.’

  Hero smiled, and said hello, shaking the hand he offered. As he sat, Paul took in the changes that time had wrought since the last time he’d seen her from a distance on a visit to her sister. He hadn’t forgotten the first time he’d seen her at Pete’s wedding when Nick had been hogging her nearly all night. Not that he could blame him. He would have done the same, given the chance. And, of course, he had heard about her accident. A scar showed on her cheekbone, but she wore her hair differently now which hid much of the damage. From what he heard the ex-model now walked with a limp, but she still remained one of the most beautiful women Paul had ever seen. It was different now, a more natural beauty, but still stunning. Paul lifted his drink, observing the interaction between her and his friend, trying to work out whether there was anything between them now. He’d made that mistake a few years ago, and nearly lost Nick as a mate. It had been a stupid thing to do and he’d never do that again. But if she was free …

  ‘So I hear you’re bringing Susannah Dagmar to the ball?’

  Sarah looked horrified. ‘Oh, Nick, you’re not.’

  Hero smiled, seeing the tease in Paul’s eye.

  ‘Over my dead body.’ Nick finished the last of his beer. ‘Anyway, I believe someone else has the pleasure of her company that night.’

  ‘Oh, they’ll have the pleasure all right,’ Paul blurted before remembering they had company.

  ‘Paul!’ His mother admonished but Hero was laughing.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m not exactly her greatest fan.’