Six Ways to Sunday

by Karly Lane

  ‘I’ve got work tomorrow anyway.’ And a life to get back to.

  ‘I’ll see how busy things get over the next week or so and try to come back for a few days.’

  Rilee bit back the initial leap of excitement. The plan! Remember the plan? ‘I’m not sure how busy I’m going to be…There’s a few parties booked in at the pub, I might be working a lot.’

  ‘So…that would be a thanks but no thanks for another visit?’ he asked slowly, his touch stilling on her arm.

  Rilee closed her eyes, before easing out of his arms to brace herself on her elbows and look over at him. ‘That’s not what I meant. But it is what I think needs to be said. This thing,’ she said, unsure how to address what it was between them, ‘it’s not going to go anywhere, Dan. It can’t. And sure we could hook up whenever you’re back in the city, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea, either.’

  ‘Why?’

  Because every minute I’m with you, I feel like I’m falling deeper into something that I can’t explain. ‘Because it’s a long way to fly just for the odd one-night stand,’ she said instead.

  ‘I told you before, that’s not what I want.’

  ‘I don’t see what else it could be.’

  ‘You don’t feel whatever this thing is between us?’ he asked bluntly, catching her off guard. ‘I already feel like I’ve known you forever. I’ve never had that with anyone else before. Tell me you don’t feel that too.’

  It was ridiculous, completely insane, but damned if he wasn’t right. She’d never told anyone, let alone a man she’d just met, half the things she’d told Dan. She did feel as though she’d known him a long time; it was incredible to realise it had only been two days. Her common sense scoffed, but that didn’t change the fact she had an undeniable connection to this man. ‘It doesn’t matter what I feel. The point is that there’s no future in this. My life is here. My business is going to be here. Unless you’re thinking about moving to the city, I just don’t understand how you can think this can be anything more than a weekend fling.’

  Dan studied her silently for a long time and Rilee held his gaze with a regretful look of her own.

  ‘I’m not giving up,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll keep coming back as many times as I have to until we figure this out.’

  Truth be told, Rilee wasn’t sure she’d see him again after that day, but true to his word, Dan spent the next few months flying back and forth whenever he had a chance.

  Each time he left, Rilee found herself distracted and miserable. She tried everything: booking in more patients, working extra shifts at the pub to keep her mind from wandering. She even made a point of visualising her clinic, seeing her name on the front door and fixing it firmly in her mind, only to find herself picturing Dan’s face and conjuring up the feel of his rough work hands running over her skin. They sent text messages through the day; she always woke up at some ungodly hour to a Good morning, beautiful text message before he headed out to work for the day, and they talked on the phone late into the night. She missed him when he wasn’t there and craved his arrival like a drug. Sometimes he’d only have a day in town, other times he’d squeeze in three or four days, and with each visit her resolve to remain objective and strong crumbled just a little bit more.

  Three months after they met, Dan proposed. There was no warning. They were sitting on a headland, basking in the late afternoon sun, when he withdrew a small box from his pocket and asked her to marry him. It would have been the perfect story to tell their grandchildren one day…except that she didn’t say yes. Instead she burst into tears. Why couldn’t he understand? She had dreams she’d been working towards for years, she couldn’t just throw all that away. She’d put too much work into them.

  Dan took her back to her flat and she asked him to leave. It almost killed her. She cried herself to sleep and refused to answer her phone. She couldn’t talk to him. She couldn’t make it any clearer. Yes, she loved him; she hadn’t wanted to fall in love, but she’d had no control over it. She loved him. More than she’d ever thought it possible to love someone. But he was asking her to give up everything in order to be with him. Hadn’t she learned her lesson with Alexis? Dan lived in a completely different world to her; how could she possibly expect to fit into his life even if she wanted to give up everything she’d worked so hard for? And yet…it wasn’t the same as with Alexis.

  A few days later she turned down a shift at the pub and, despite her best attempt to make up a plausible excuse, clearly Janice hadn’t bought it, arriving on her doorstep moments after they’d hung up. She’d taken one look at her limp hair and the dark circles under her eyes and demanded to know what was going on.

  ‘Dan asked me to marry him,’ she said miserably.

  ‘I’m guessing this is somehow a problem,’ Janice said wryly.

  ‘Of course it’s a problem!’

  ‘How?’

  ‘He lives in the middle of nowhere. On a farm. I’d have to move there.’

  ‘So?’

  Rilee opened her mouth and closed it again a few times, feeling like a goldfish. ‘What do you mean so? What about my business?’

  ‘Do you love him?’

  ‘Yes.’ Rilee’s groan turned into a sob.

  ‘Can your business give you back the love that Dan can give you? Will it be there beside you every night? Would being away from it make you as miserable as you are now? Would it make you stop eating and showering until you look like a zombie?’

  Rilee dropped her head onto the table and shut her eyes tightly. Yes, she would be incredibly disappointed if she had to give up her dream of opening her own business. Yes, she’d probably even cry…a lot. But Janice had a point. The thought of Dan not being in her life was too painful to contemplate. Even though she’d said no to him, she hadn’t really considered the possibility that they would no longer be together. The realisation made her cry harder.

  ‘You think about it for a bit, but not too much longer. Either way, you can’t stay hidden inside here all day. You need to make a choice.’

  Her phone beeped later that morning and Rilee listlessly dragged it across the table to read it. She had a fleeting moment of joy when she saw that it was from Dan, until reality once more sank in.

  I’m staying at the Regency. Can we talk?

  She stared at the text and took a shaky breath. She needed to end this now. A few hours later she was showered, dressed and standing at the reception desk of his hotel. The elevator ride seemed to take a millennium to arrive at his floor, and her heart thudded in her chest as she scanned the door numbers. When she reached his room, she didn’t even get the chance to knock before the door opened and Dan stood there, looking as tired and wrung out as Rilee felt.

  ‘Dan…I’m so sorry…’ Rilee said quietly.

  She saw him close his eyes tightly and shake his head, disappointment flowing through him.

  ‘I’m sorry for putting you through all this. I needed time to think…’

  He opened his eyes and cut her off. ‘I know you have to think of your practice. And I know how much it means to you, Ri. But every time I leave you behind, I feel like a little piece of me gets ripped away. I can’t concentrate while I’m working. I can’t sleep, I’m snapping everyone’s head off. I miss you so goddamn much I don’t know what to do. I don’t want you to give up your business, but I can’t stand the thought of a future without you. I love you.’

  ‘I love you too,’ she said, rushing on before she lost her nerve. ‘I’m not giving up on my dream to open my own practice,’ she said and saw him hang his head in defeat. ‘But it doesn’t mean I can’t open it somewhere else.’

  She saw him eye her hopefully, as though trying to interpret what she was telling him.

  ‘Yes. I’ll marry you,’ she said softly.

  ‘You will?’ His voice was husky with emotion.

  Rilee nodded through her tears. ‘Yes.’

  Everything was about to change. She wasn’t sure if she was ready for it, but she kn
ew it was coming, ready or not.

  Four

  Looking back, she knew it seemed rash, and she could understand his friends and family having doubts—after all, she’d snared the most eligible bachelor in the district in only three short months of meeting the man.

  Apparently people had taken out bets on how long Dan Kincaid would remain a bachelor. It seemed twenty-seven was getting on in these parts. Although, in her defence, she hadn’t been aware that he was such an eligible bachelor—she’d no idea when he said he lived on a bit of land that it had been Thumb Creek Station, the biggest parcel of prime grazing and crop land in the area, and she certainly hadn’t realised that his parents would be so vocal in their disappointment at the marriage.

  A distant hum snagged her attention, gradually growing louder until it became the distinct sound of an approaching vehicle. Steeling herself against the smug grin she anticipated, it was a relief when Mick, the stock agent, if the sign on his door was anything to go by, pulled up and gave a cheery wave.

  ‘Well, you certainly don’t do things by halves, do you?’ he announced when he had finished walking around the four-wheel drive to inspect the damage.

  ‘No, I like to do a job properly,’ she agreed dryly.

  ‘Sit tight and I’ll hook up the winch and have you outta here in a jiffy.’

  True to his word, Mick busied himself attaching the winch from the front of his truck to her vehicle and gradually the bulky vehicle she was in found traction and slid forward out of the deep mud it had been bogged in.

  ‘So you’re the new Mrs Kincaid then?’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Mick Honeywell,’ he introduced himself, reaching forward and extending a thick paw of a hand for her to shake. He wore the obligatory stockman’s hat, only his was in a lot better condition than the dirty, faded one that Dan was rarely without. Mick’s face was tanned and leathered and he had an easy smile.

  ‘Thanks for coming to my rescue. If you hadn’t I’m pretty sure the general consensus would have been to leave me here.’

  Mick gave a deep chuckle but didn’t deny the statement, and Rilee gave a small disheartened sigh. ‘How about I show you where you need to go,’ he said. ‘I think Dan will be looking for that part right about now.’

  ‘Are you sure you have time?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m the boss, so it’s not likely anyone’s going to fire me, is it?’

  Rilee gave the man a brief smile before climbing back into the farm vehicle, now liberally coated in sticky brown mud, and followed along the multitude of dirt tracks still slick and muddy from the recent rain.

  After they had been driving for close to twenty minutes, Mick pulled over and Rilee came to a stop beside him. ‘You can see Dan now. Just continue along this road and you’ll find a gate a few ks along. Go through that and you’ll end up right alongside him.’

  ‘Thank you, Mick, I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’

  ‘You’ll be right once you get the hang of things out here.’ His grin flashed and Rilee wished there were more Mick Honeywells out here and fewer Kincaids who seemed quick to criticise and make her feel inadequate.

  She watched him do a U-turn and waved as he passed by. Putting the big vehicle in first gear, she set off towards the middle of the paddock and the speck that was her husband.

  Rolling to a stop, Rilee watched Dan cautiously as he approached, wiping his oil-smudged hands on a piece of rag. He looked impressive in his worn jeans and T-shirt—even streaked with grease and dirt as they were. The brim of his Akubra was low on his forehead, shading his eyes and making it difficult for Rilee to gauge his level of irritability.

  ‘I brought you some lunch, but it’s probably a bit late now.’

  ‘Thanks, I’m starving.’ He tossed the oily rag in the toolbox behind him and Rilee eased open the door to slide out.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay, Ri. I just have to get this tractor fixed before it gets too dark to see what I’m doing. You better stay here and follow me back.’

  She watched as he bit into the first sandwich, chewing and working at the same time, and stood by feeling useless as he fitted the filter she’d delivered.

  When Dan had told her his family worked a property out west, she wasn’t sure what she’d imagined; maybe a homey-looking house with a wide saggy verandah and two hardworking, salt of the earth parents who spent their lives working the land beside their son. What she discovered upon landing at Thumb Creek Station was something entirely different.

  Dan had flown them home in his Piper, a small fixed-wing aircraft he’d had since he was sixteen years old. Upon arrival at Thumb Creek Station she’d discovered that inside the massive hangar was a second plane, a slightly larger one, that his parents used for regular trips to the city and visiting his two older sisters who lived in other states. It was at this point she realised her original assumptions about life on Thumb Creek had been somewhat inaccurate.

  It was just on dark when they landed, so Rilee didn’t get a very good look at the property from above, but the house was lit up like a Christmas tree. The grand twostorey stone structure was nothing like the homey place she’d been imagining. Being greeted at the massive front door by the housekeeper was yet another indication that perhaps her husband had been playing down his family’s financial situation.

  However, it was his parents’ stunned expressions after he introduced Rilee as his wife that really stole the show. In the awkward moments they spent alone in the family room while his parents went to attend to something—code, Rilee decided, for going to have a minor breakdown in private—she turned to Dan and glared at him. ‘You said you’d tell them!’

  ‘Rilee, once you get to know my parents you’ll understand why I didn’t.’

  ‘You can’t just turn up and introduce me as your wife, Dan!’ she whispered harshly, not wanting his parents to overhear should they be on their way back in.

  ‘I’m a grown man, I don’t need their permission to get married, Ri.’

  ‘They’re your parents!’

  ‘We decided to elope, remember?’

  ‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean you don’t at least mention to your family that you’re getting married.’ She understood that they’d rushed through the normal relationship milestones like meeting the parents and, sure, his parents had been overseas for a good portion of their courtship but, still, Dan was making unnecessary ripples for her to navigate here. They were going to blame her for their son’s secretive behaviour, she was certain of it.

  ‘So Rilee,’ Mrs Kincaid said when they were seated at the dining table, ‘were your parents as surprised by this news as we are?’

  ‘Very little surprises my parents any more,’ she said, trying for a bit of light relief.

  ‘I see,’ Mrs Kincaid frowned. ‘And what do your parents do? What industry are they in?’

  ‘Well, they’re also farmers…of sorts,’ she added. At least the herbs they grew nowadays were all of the legal kind, which was a vast improvement.

  ‘Oh?’ Mrs Kincaid asked.

  ‘What do your parents run?’ Mr Kincaid jumped in to ask.

  ‘Run?’ Rilee asked.

  ‘Crops or livestock?’

  ‘Oh. Well, crops, I guess,’ she began, but he was already firing more questions.

  ‘Broadacre or small crop?’

  ‘Umm,’ Rilee frowned.

  ‘Where are they at?’

  Finally, a question she could answer confidently. ‘They’re up around the Northern Rivers area, in a little place called Tippery Heights.’

  He nodded his head thoughtfully. ‘What’s the country like up that way?’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she started eagerly. ‘Lots of mountains.’

  ‘What’s the rainfall like? Be pretty high?’

  ‘Dad,’ Dan cut in wearily.

  ‘What? I’m interested,’ he said, returning his gaze back to Rilee expectantly, as though waiting to measure up their rainfall agai
nst his own tally.

  ‘Umm, I’m not really sure. A fair bit.’

  ‘How big is their outfit?’

  Rilee looked helplessly at Dan, waiting for a translation. ‘How many hectares?’ he supplied.

  ‘Oh. I think it’s about thirty.’

  Rilee saw the older man do some silent calculations. ‘So about seventy-odd acres.’

  ‘Um, I guess so. They supply different herbs for the natural medicine market in Australia and overseas.’

  Rilee was extremely proud of her parents for turning their passion into a rewarding career. In fact, seeing what they’d done had encouraged her to pursue a naturopathy degree at a time when she’d been feeling lost.

  ‘Natural medicine, you say?’ Jacob said curiously. ‘Much money in that?’

  ‘They do very nicely. But they don’t do it for the money, they truly believe in the products they make.’

  Surprisingly, Rilee had discovered when she’d returned home from London that her parents were beginning to build themselves a fairly lucrative business. In those few years she’d been away, she’d been forced to grow up. She no longer saw her parents through the eyes of a rebellious teenager. They may have left the modern world for a more basic lifestyle, but they were both very savvy people and they’d found a niche market for their herbs in a rapidly growing natural health market. Their business had expanded over the years and they now turned over an impressive profit. You’d never know it to look at them, though: they still dressed in second-hand clothes and grew all their own food. They loved their quiet lifestyle and Rilee was happy for them.

  Jacob’s small scoff brought her up sharply. ‘Everyone does it for the money. Otherwise what’s the point in putting in all that hard work? Money’s what makes the world go round.’

  An image of a cold smile flashed through her mind and she remembered the day Alexis had informed her that he’d grown tired of her. As he’d driven away in his Porsche, she’d stood there broken-hearted and angry at herself for ignoring what she’d known about him all along: that he was a spoilt playboy with far too much money and time on his hands. Money might make the world go around, but she was glad it was not the driving force in her life or her parents’.