by Sasha Wasley
Without warning, Tom pushed his horse forward into a canter and rode until he’d caught up with the group of stockmen, leaving her alone. Stunned, Willow scrambled to understand his bizarre reaction.
Ohhh.
She’d basically proposed they team up to run the stations, just like they had planned to all those years ago. Before he told her he loved her. Before she failed to read his letters.
Tears sprang to her eyes and Willow hated herself. How could I be so stupid? She tried to be mad at Tom but couldn’t. She deserved whatever she got from him. It had been insanity to suggest such a thing when there was so much history between them. He was obviously still hurting over what had happened.
Maybe she should tell him the truth? Would it go some way towards healing his pain? She rode the rest of the way alone, lagging behind the group. Occasionally Vern rode back to check if she was all right but Willow had several hours to herself to think about whether she should apologise. It wasn’t enough.
By the time they reached Paterson Downs, she wasn’t any closer to a decision and her head was aching from the ups and downs of the past eighteen hours. She’d felt excitement when she discovered how good Tom was at all this; pride to hear he’d read and used her work; hope when she had the idea that they could work together; then regret that she had made the suggestion, forgetting how much she’d hurt him; and pain when she realised how deep that hurt ran.
Above all, Willow’s heart was filled with bitter disappointment. They could never work together – or even have a real friendship – not with their messy past.
Beth met Willow in the stables as she dismounted. ‘How’d you go?’
‘My arse. Oh, my arse!’ Willow replied mournfully.
Beth laughed so hard she nearly choked. ‘I’ll get the industrial-sized tube of liniment and some arse bandaids.’
‘Industrial-sized? Are you saying I’ve got a big arse?’ Willow asked, unsaddling Peanut.
‘You? Yeah right.
‘It may not be big, but after this weekend it’s so flat you could serve a meal on it.’
‘I reckon some of the boys in the dining hall might enjoy that. What do you reckon, Tom?’
To Willow’s mortification, Tom had brought his mount in and was leading it to a stall nearby. He only gave a slight chuckle in reply as Barry joined them.
‘No walking stick, Dad?’ she called hurriedly, hoping Tom wasn’t thinking about the size or shape of her butt.
‘I feel like a little old man using the damn thing,’ Barry growled. ‘How was muster?’
‘Good. All sorted.’
‘You’re a ripper, Willow. Glad you were there to help, Tom. Thanks for letting us use the chopper.’
Si appeared by the stable door, his arm in a sling. Willow handed Peanut’s reins to Kira, the young girl who looked after the horses, and approached Si, Beth trailing behind. He seemed sheepish at first, but she coaxed the details about his injury out of him.
‘So how long will you be out of action?’ Willow asked.
‘Doc Paterson says six weeks,’ said Si.
‘It’s a clean break to his collarbone,’ Beth chimed in. ‘I don’t expect any ongoing issues.’
Willow inspected Si’s face. ‘Are you in much pain?’
‘Nah.’ He was bashful. ‘It’s all good.’
Willow understood bloke-speak and knew it must be hurting like hell.
‘I’ve given him painkillers,’ said Beth.
Willow nodded. ‘Well, you make sure you rest it like you’re supposed to,’ she told Si. ‘We want it to heal properly. And if you’re worried about it at all, if it’s hurting more than it should or you run out of painkillers, you come and see me, okay?’
‘Thanks, boss. I’m not sure I’ll be —’ He stopped when Jean and Hegney appeared.
‘The troops are back!’ Hegney was cheery. ‘Hi, Willow, Tom. Everything go okay?’
Jean added her welcome, handing out cold beers and cans of soft drink to all the stockmen. Hegney told Tom the helicopter was safely landed at Quintilla and there was a Forrest vehicle parked out the front when he was ready to go home. Tom looked like he was going to leave immediately but Willow intervened.
‘Stay for a drink with us,’ she said, grabbing his arm as he made to leave the stables. ‘We need to celebrate getting home. I know it was only a short muster but it’s my first in years. Stay and have a drink?’
‘Good idea,’ said her father. ‘Come inside for a drink, Tom.’
Tom nodded. Willow almost sagged with relief and relinquished his arm. Behind him Beth shot her a what the hell? look.
‘Red wine only, Dad,’ she said to take the attention away from her and Tom.
Her father muttered belligerently and they headed to the house. The stockmen wandered towards the station kitchen for their own celebration, but Hegney went into the Paterson house with Barry, ahead of Willow. Did he consider himself family? When Beth poured everyone a glass of red wine, he even asked for a beer.
‘There’s beer in the station kitchen, I imagine,’ Beth said vaguely, glancing at Willow.
‘We don’t keep it in the house any more,’ Willow reminded him.
‘Right. I’ll go get one, then. You want one, Barry? Tom?’
Barry’s eyes lit up but Willow shook her head at him and he sighed a no. Tom said he was fine with his glass of red so Hegney departed for the station kitchen. Grumbling again, Barry led Tom to the lounge room.
‘Doesn’t Hegney understand Dad’s dietary restrictions?’ Beth asked Willow under her breath.
‘I’ve explained it a couple of times,’ Willow said. ‘Maybe he’s forgotten.’
Beth inspected Willow’s face and her mouth curved into a sudden smile. ‘You really need to wash your face.’
‘Really?’ Willow half-laughed, shoving her wineglass into Beth’s hand, and then scurrying to the bathroom to check her reflection. ‘Jesus,’ she muttered, seeing dark eyes peering out from a face smeared with dirt. In true hat-hair style, her hair was bent in strange directions and it was almost grey with dust.
She splashed her face, red water swirling down the drain. Then she pulled out her hair tie and tipped her head upside down to shake the dust into the sink. Marginally better – at least she was presentable now.
‘There’s Willow,’ Barry exclaimed when she returned to the lounge room. ‘I knew you were there under all that red dirt.’
Beth handed back Willow’s wineglass and sank down onto the rug, curling her legs beneath her. ‘So, collarbone incident aside, was muster worth it, Willow? Did you see what you needed to see?’
‘Sort of.’ Willow sat down opposite her on the threadbare corduroy couch. ‘Except I was so bloody busy, and then so exhausted, that I didn’t take any notes. I just hope I can remember enough to make a training plan. Vern’s great, though. I really like his style. He’s a great stockman and a strong droving manager.’
Tom had settled himself in the armchair beneath a framed photo of Barry rodeo riding in his younger days. ‘Vern’s family are a good mob. They’re very reliable.’
‘You’ve got a bunch of the Yannapingas working at Quintilla, isn’t that right?’ Barry asked.
Tom nodded. ‘Vern’s sister Violet is our dorm supervisor and some of his brothers and cousins are part of our muster crew.’
‘We should hang onto Vern if we can, Dad,’ said Willow. ‘He’ll make a good manager one day.’
Hegney walked into the room at that moment and she hoped like hell he hadn’t heard her. If he had, he didn’t show it. He cracked the tops on two beers and handed one to Barry.
‘I figured once in a blue moon wouldn’t hurt, mate,’ he said.
Willow watched in dismay as her father gratefully accepted the beer, pushing his red wine aside. She and Beth exchanged looks and Beth spoke with admirable composure. ‘No more than one, Dad.’
‘Maybe just half, yeah?’ Willow added. ‘I’ll get a glass.’
‘No need for a glass, sweethe
art,’ said Barry. ‘I can control myself.’
Oops, too bossy. Willow shot him an apologetic smile.
‘Hey, Willow.’ Beth tried to smooth the moment over, ‘I took the opportunity to clear out my old room this weekend and I found some boxes of your stuff. It’s full of Free’s art crap, too, which is strange.’
‘I asked the staff to clear out Willow’s room when she said she was coming home,’ Barry said. ‘Free had been storing some of her things in there.’
‘So now they’re in my room?’ Beth was unimpressed.
Not interested in this domestic discussion, Hegney asked Tom a question about helicopter controls. Willow looked back at Beth.
‘The staff must have assumed it was all Free’s. I’ll get my stuff out of there as soon as I can.’
‘I hope you don’t mind but I looked through it. I just wanted to see what it was.’
‘That’s fine.’
‘I thought Free was the only one of us who knows her way around a sketchpad,’ her sister added, a mischievous glint in her eye.
Willow was baffled. ‘I haven’t drawn anything except crop-planting diagrams since school.’
‘I’ll show you what I found. It’s pretty good, but definitely not Free’s style.’
She disappeared for a minute, while Tom and Hegney discussed helicopter fuel costs, and returned holding a rolled A3 page, which she dropped into Willow’s lap. Willow unfurled it curiously.
Tom’s drawing.
She devoured the familiar sight: the girl with streaming dark hair and a flowing blue dress, her eyes trained on some invisible sight off the side of the page, galloping on a chestnut pony against a backdrop of soaring mountains. Willow’s eyes prickled and for a scary moment she thought she might cry in front of everyone, but then her pragmatism kicked back in. She looked up at Tom. His eyes were fixed on the drawing, his face tense.
‘Pretty good, sweetheart,’ said her father, peering at the page in her lap. ‘Let me have a closer look.’
‘I didn’t do it,’ said Willow, passing it to her father. Ugh, her voice sounded so tight and unnatural.
Beth raised her eyebrows. ‘So it is one of Free’s?’
Thankfully, Tom appeared to have recovered. He laughed lightly. ‘Bloody hell. Blast from the past. I did that one.’
‘You!’ Beth stared and then glanced at Willow, comprehension dawning.
‘Yeah, Banjo on Tuffie.’ Tom sipped his wine, avoiding Willow’s eye. He’d used her nickname again. It hurt almost as much as it was welcome.
Her father gazed at the drawing critically. ‘It’s a bloody good likeness,’ he said.
‘A little bit of artistic licence, maybe.’ Willow tried to sound normal. ‘Pretty sure I never rode Tuffie in a dress.’
Beth and Barry guffawed but Tom gave Willow a challenging look. ‘Actually, I didn’t take artistic licence and it’s not a dress. It’s a nightie.’
What the hell did he mean by that? Willow wished that the ground would open up and swallow her. Why would he say such a thing in front of her father?
Tom must have seen Willow’s horrified face because he hastened to explain. ‘Don’t you remember that day? We must have been about fourteen, fifteen maybe. I came round early and you were still in your nightie, so we were eating toast on the patio when two of the cattle dogs got in a scrap and one got hurt. It took off through the yards like a Bondi tram. It was heading towards all the cows and calves so you chucked your toast at me, ran straight to Tuffie’s yard, yanked the gate open, and then jumped on him, nightie and all – no saddle, no bridle. You rode like the clappers after that damn dog. Fifteen minutes later I was still standing on the patio, wondering if I’d ever see you alive again, and you came back on Tuffie with the injured dog lying across your lap.’
Everyone was laughing now, Beth so hard that she had to put down her wineglass, before falling back on the green rug.
‘Typical Willow,’ she managed. ‘Dr Doolittle.’
‘Oh, my God,’ said Willow. ‘I hadn’t thought about that in years. Poor old Frodo. He and Bilbo were always fighting.’
‘Banjo herded him away from the calving cows, too. Frodo was all right, in the end,’ Tom said, grinning at her. ‘Bled all over your nightie, though.’
‘I thought you’d drawn me on Tuffie in a dress,’ she said, taking the drawing back from her father and peering at it more closely. ‘That always bugged me.’ She smiled at Tom. ‘I should have given you more credit. But the mountains are all wrong, I stand by that. There’re no alps in Mount Clair.’
‘You’ve got me there,’ he chuckled.
Thank God for his relaxed manner and sense of humour, she thought. That could have been a horribly uncomfortable moment but Tom had come through, making light of it all and telling a funny old story. His gaze was on hers and Willow was struck again by what a good-looking man Tom had become. Her thoughts skipped back to that moment in the stable when she’d taken hold of his warm, muscular arm. She pulled her eyes away from that strong, stubbled jaw and the sky-blue eyes and sipped her wine, staring down at the drawing.
Tom waited for a lull in the conversation before he got to his feet. ‘Well, I’ll be heading off, I think. I have to admit – I’m hanging out for a shower.’
Barry rose. ‘Thanks again for helping out with muster, Tom. I don’t know what Patersons would do without such good neighbours.
They all walked him out to the car to say goodbye but Willow hung back, unsure how things stood between them. He turned his vehicle around as everyone trailed inside, and then stopped. He appeared to be sending a message or checking something on his phone. Was this her opportunity? To tell him the truth – to ask his forgiveness? Impulsively she ran towards his car and, noticing her, he wound his window down, his expectant blue eyes on her. Willow lost confidence abruptly and stood for a few moments in silence, her mind blank. What am I doing?
Tom frowned. ‘You right?’
‘I just – I . . .’ She attempted to compose herself. ‘Those letters you sent.’
He stiffened. ‘Doesn’t matter. Ancient history.’ He put the car into gear and started to roll away.
‘Wait!’
Tom braked.
‘It might not matter to you, but it matters to me because I don’t like that you think I’m a horrible, cold person. So here’s the truth. I didn’t read them.’
He lifted his eyes to her face, astonished, and there was the old Tom – the open-faced boy of seventeen. ‘What?’
‘I only read the first couple. It hurt so much I couldn’t read any more. I kept them – but I couldn’t open them. I only read them recently, since I got back.’ Tears came to her eyes and the words spilled out. ‘I’m so sorry, Tom. It was cowardly of me but I was still so messed up after Mum died and I just – I couldn’t take it. It’s no excuse, I know. It was weak of me. But I have to tell you – I didn’t know about the time you asked to meet me at the eastern gate. I didn’t know about my birthday deadline for replying. If I’d known, I don’t know what I would have done, but I wouldn’t have ignored you. I would have at least answered.’
‘You didn’t know,’ he repeated slowly, dropping his gaze to the steering wheel. He stared down for a long moment and Willow waited, trembling.
Finally he took a breath, moved his gear stick out of drive, then put it back into drive and gave her a glance so swift she couldn’t read anything from it.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’
He wound up his window and drove away.
It was a challenging week at Patersons for Willow. Hegney scheduled an appointment for Wednesday week to catch up with the Forrests and go over Willow’s plan, nine days after their return from muster – and her confession. Willow was so nervous in the lead-up that she hardly knew what to do with herself, and not because she was in doubt about how the Forrests would respond to her certification plan. The one distraction was that Free was due home that weekend. Free’s childhood bedroom was a chaotic art studio these day
s, the carpet utterly destroyed by paint stains. She’d been using Willow’s and Beth’s bedrooms to sleep in for years, so Willow now had to clear the guest room for her younger sister.
Then there was drama on Thursday because Hegney saw the shopping bill for the station kitchen. He brought a pile of invoices into the house – no knock on the door – while Willow was preparing her father’s lunch and slapped it down on the bench, glaring at her. She knew immediately what it was about.
‘Hi, Liam. What’s the problem?’
‘Like you don’t know.’
She was stunned by his rudeness. Was this how Hegney spoke to her father? Probably not, she reflected bitterly.
Willow put down the chopping knife. ‘The kitchen costs, I imagine. Yes, they’re higher than usual and —’
‘Higher than usual? Try tripled!’ He was so angry that his breathing sounded laboured.
‘We had to buy in staples. Flour, sugar, spices. It’s a transition to organic, fair trade. It’s going to cost more.’
‘What, are we running a friggin’ upmarket restaurant here?’
‘No, we’re running an ethical, sustainable cattle station and we’re not going to do it hypocritically.’ Her own voice rose sharply. ‘Do you expect me to tell the staff we will be feeding the cattle chemical-free, organic feed and eating chemical-laden, mass-produced crap ourselves? That’s not how this works.’
‘So you blow out the operating costs and that’s okay because it’s part of your philosophy?’ He’d grown even louder and Willow watched him in consternation.
‘The costs are higher and will be for a few weeks while Jean establishes her new inventory. Then they will drop.’
‘How does that work? I’ve compared the costs per kilogram on a couple of items and they’re bloody ridiculous! The whole quarter’s kitchen budget will be blown in two weeks!’
‘It will reduce when the stores are established, trust me. The type of food Jean’s cooking is going to evolve and it will mean less waste. Yes, the bill will be a little higher than it has been in the past but not unsustainably high, because food will be used more carefully. Leftovers will be incorporated into the next day’s meals with more creativity and thought —’