by Ford, Holly
It was the same voice Lennie had heard on Mitch’s phone.
‘Tess is our manager here,’ Mitch said, with another grin at Tess. She certainly looked like a woman in charge. Even without the clipboard wedged under her arm, it wouldn’t have been difficult to guess who was running the show.
‘Nice to meet you,’ Lennie said.
‘Likewise. You’re Jim’s granddaughter, right? We spoke about Peg on the phone the other day.’
‘Yes.’ Following Tess and Mitch across the paddock, Lennie tried to read the vibe between them. There was something there alright. Not a spark, exactly, but…a warmth. An intimacy. And something else on Mitch’s part, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
‘How is Peg?’ she asked, wishing she could stop the dollar-clock long enough to go and see for herself.
‘Good,’ Tess said, smiling back at Lennie over her shoulder without reducing her pace. ‘Stan’s doing all the things you told him to do. Rolling her food into balls. He’s even using the pillow.’ Lennie watched her exchange a glance with Mitch, amusement running between them. They were a hell of a lot more to each other than co-workers, that was for sure. Was Mitch sleeping with his boss, was that it?
Up ahead, another guy was waiting for them beside the yards, leaning back against the rails. A guy it was pretty hard to miss. As they drew closer, he straightened. ‘Hey.’ He flashed her a breathtaking smile. ‘You must be Lennie. I’m Nate.’
‘Nate McAdam,’ Tess prompted.
Lennie got the feeling the name ought to mean something to her. It didn’t.
‘Nate’s the stock manager.’ Tess raised her eyebrows at him sweetly. ‘So if you find anything wrong with the rams, it’s his fault.’
‘Boys will be boys.’ Nate’s cheek dimpled. ‘I can’t help what they get up to over the summer holidays.’
His weight was against the rail again, Tess standing close beside him. They weren’t touching, or even looking at each other, exactly. They didn’t need to. The way their bodies leaned into each other, the way they fitted together, was unmistakeable. Lennie felt a rush of sympathy. Mitch might be in love with his boss, but whatever Tess felt for him was all too clearly eclipsed by what she felt for—this guy. This sunny, charming, outgoing, outrageously beautiful guy.
‘Okay.’ Nate’s eyes wandered over Lennie’s shoulder. ‘Who’s on first?’
‘You are,’ Mitch said briskly.
Nate blew out his breath.
‘Don’t look at me.’ Tess grinned. ‘I’ve got the clipboard.’
•
‘Sorry, mate,’ Lennie muttered under her breath, as she ran her hands over the ram’s shaggy right testicle. ‘I’d normally introduce myself first, but I’m kind of in a hurry.’
Finding no lumps on right or left, she stood back. ‘All good.’
Perched on the top rail, Tess nodded, noting the result against the ram’s tag number.
Down in the dust of the race, Lennie waited for Nate to wrestle her next customer into submission. He made it look easy enough. Lennie suspected, strongly, that it wasn’t. Jesus, the horns on the thing were the size of Texas. Hoping to hell that Nate had a good grip, she bent again.
Bloody, bloody Jim. She’d be palpating somebody’s teacup Chihuahua between lattes right now if it wasn’t for him.
Mind you, when she got a chance to look up, the view here was hard to beat. Of the mountains, she reminded herself sternly as, having worked the next ram into the race, Mitch peeled off the remains of his rugby shirt.
In spite of Nate’s more obvious charms—admittedly somewhat obscured by eighty kilos of stinky ram—Mitch’s presence had been growing on her until it took up the whole yard. All the time they’d been in there, she couldn’t recall him speaking a word, except to his dogs. And yet she couldn’t get his voice out of her head.
It’s complicated.
Hell yeah it was. Nothing about the guy was easy.
Apart from maybe, for a moment, that smile.
‘We’re going to need bloods on this one.’ Lennie looked up at Nate. ‘We’re nearly through. May as well take the sample now.’
He nodded. Conscious, no doubt, that she was billing them by the minute, they’d been working without a break, and the strain of it was beginning to show in his face. As he adjusted the angle of the ram’s neck for her, she clipped off a patch of wool for her needle and, leaving him restraining her patient, hurried out into the pen to grab her sampling kit from the other side of the rail.
Crouching above the bag, Lennie glanced over her shoulder. Around her, the pen was near empty, the final few of Broken Creek’s finest occupying the corner. One gnarly old specimen, in particular, she wasn’t looking forward to meeting—his horns looked like some kind of mediaeval instrument of torture. Seeing her looking at him, the ram stamped his foot. Lennie looked back down, concentrating on the syringe.
‘Lennie, step out,’ Mitch ordered urgently from the rail above her.
Straightening, she looked up. Holy shit. She froze.
In some small part of her brain that was still working, she heard Mitch bark out something else. Then her back hit the rails. There was a tiny scream that might have been hers before she became aware that it was Mitch’s weight, not the ram’s, pinning her to the side of the yard.
Three dogs, barking wildly, were diving under the lowered horns that were hurtling towards her. Distracted, the ram changed the object of his charge. Lennie yelped again as he tossed that wicked head. But the dog he’d targeted was too fast, sailing over the rail to safety. More dogs snapping at his heels, the ram cantered into the race. She breathed out as Tess slammed the drop gate down behind him.
Her hands, Lennie realised, were clinging to Mitch’s singlet. Luckily for him she appeared to have dropped the needle first. Relaxing her grip, she felt the muscles in his back flex as he turned.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I think I might have dislocated my dignity…’ She took another couple of breaths. ‘But yeah.’ Lennie shook her head. ‘Sorry. That was pretty dumb, huh?’
There was a gleam in Mitch’s eyes. ‘I should have just thrown you a chair.’
He hadn’t stepped back from the rail, his body still so close to hers she had to look up into his face. ‘Thank you,’ she said seriously.
The gleam grew. ‘I’ll look forward to the muffin basket.’
Behind his shoulders, Tess and Nate were suddenly looking very busy.
There was a resounding thump from the race. Oh, bloody hell. As Lennie’s eyes followed the direction of the noise, the realisation dawned on her that the now-trapped ram still hadn’t had his testicles checked.
Mitch stood aside, looking over at the race. ‘He’ll simmer down in a minute or two.’ He sounded unperturbed. ‘He’s a bolshy old git, that one.’
‘Since you’re there, mate.’ With a quick grin at Mitch, Nate took his place on the drop gate.
‘Right.’ Dusting his palms in resignation, Mitch sized up the remaining rams. ‘Where were we?’
Concentrate, Lennie ordered herself. Unless you want a kick in the head. Risking a look at Mitch as she waited for the next ram, she saw his dark eyes move over Tess and Nate at the top of the race. His expression was fleeting, there for no more than a second, but it broke Lennie’s heart. It was a look that said he wished things were different—wished it without the slightest hope they ever would be.
Lennie bent her head again, watching Mitch’s arm muscles work as he gripped the ram. In another fifteen minutes, it was over.
Having packed up her specimen box, Lennie clambered out of her overalls. ‘I’ll get back to you as soon as we get the results,’ she promised, as Tess wandered over.
‘Thanks.’
‘Hey.’ Catching Tess’s eye, Lennie grinned. ‘Any time.’ She was so getting Paul to do this next year. The thought brought her up short. Next year? Next year she’d be back in Sydney. Getting up at six to circle the dog park in the dark, enjoying a close-up vi
ew of the expressway as she sat in the sort of traffic Tess and Mitch had been joking about, not arguing about who got to hitch a helicopter into the hills. She stared for a moment at the peaks, imprinting them on her mind. ‘I’d better get these samples into the lab.’
They both looked around for Mitch. He was nowhere in sight.
As she and Tess headed back to the helicopter, Lennie checked her watch again, still unable to see her pilot. Tess paused beside a battered yellow ute, its tray loaded with fuel cans. Another few seconds ticked by.
‘You know, I don’t think Mitch is too keen on having me in his passenger seat,’ Lennie told Tess, only half-kidding. ‘I thought for a while I was going to have to walk here.’
‘Mitch didn’t want to fly you?’ Tess frowned. ‘But he’s been flying passengers all year,’ she added, under her breath. ‘Why today? Why you?’ She looked Lennie over again. ‘Still,’ she said, seeming to cheer herself up, ‘he did do it.’
Lennie watched her curiously. ‘Is there some kind of problem?’
‘No,’ Tess said. ‘No, not anymore. For a while Mitch used to have trouble…’ Her eyes moved guiltily to Nate, who was carrying a fuel can towards the R22. ‘Well, you should ask him.’
‘Nate?’ Lennie said.
‘Mitch,’ Tess told her. ‘You should ask Mitch.’
Lennie wondered what her chances of getting an answer were. As she studied the helicopter more carefully, Mitch appeared from behind it, swapping his fuel can for Nate’s.
‘How long has Mitch been working for you?’ Lennie asked Tess.
‘Actually, it’s kind of the other way round. Mitch and Nate own this place.’ Tess smiled at the expression on Lennie’s face. ‘But I guess he didn’t tell you that.’ She shook her head. ‘He never does.’
Mitch circled the R22, peering into the various gaps in its fuselage.
Arriving back with both cans, Nate chucked the empties onto the ute and leaned on the tray. ‘You’re good to go.’ He grinned. ‘See you in twelve months.’
Lennie grinned back. Not if she could help it.
Making her way across the final few metres of paddock, she climbed into the stained seat with an easier mind. This time, more confident that the helicopter wasn’t going to rattle itself to bits, the lift-off didn’t feel so scary to her. They were sitting too close together for her to be able to see Mitch’s face, but the silence between them felt easy enough.
Ask Mitch.
But not, maybe, while he was at the controls. Now didn’t seem like the best time for Mitch to dwell on why he didn’t want her in his helicopter. Small talk—if any—was probably a smarter idea.
‘I like Tess,’ Lennie tried.
‘Yeah.’ Mitch sounded thoughtful. ‘Nate lucked out there.’ He paused, a smile creeping into his voice. ‘But then, he always does.’
‘You guys have known each other a while,’ she guessed.
‘Since we were four.’ He turned his head briefly, scanning the hills below. ‘My dad worked for Nate’s on the station. We grew up here together. Stayed mates right through school.’
‘He’s your best friend,’ Lennie realised.
‘Yeah,’ Mitch said, ‘I guess he is.’ His hand moved the lever beside her. ‘Don’t tell him that, though. His head’s big enough already.’
Mitch had fallen for his best mate’s girlfriend? The woman he had to work with, live with, the woman he had to watch loving Nate every day? His best mate. His business partner, too. The guy he shared a farm with. That was complicated, alright. Even if he had a chance with Tess, Mitch could never take it. And he couldn’t even walk away.
Lennie didn’t know whether to feel pleased or heartbroken for him, but it looked like her instinct, not her intellect, had been right about Mitch from the moment they met. He knew all about loyalty.
Eight
‘I can still remember you that day in class,’ Benji said, ‘trying to teach me that principle thing.’ He was sitting across the table from Lennie on the front terrace of The Hard Yard, the sort of café-bar Kimpton certainly hadn’t possessed when they’d been in high school. Two minutes’ walk from the clinic, the converted transport yard with its reclaimed pallet furniture and replica Tolix seating was bordering on hip. Benji raised his beer flute—another thing you wouldn’t have found in Kimpton fifteen years ago. ‘Something about equilibrium in a system. What was it called?’
Lennie smiled. ‘Le Chatelier’s principle.’
Benji’s hand marked a point some distance above his head. ‘That was the moment I realised I was never getting into pre-med.’
‘You were too busy looking at Nicole Wilson’s legs, that was your problem.’ And if Lennie herself had been able to think about anything but Benji leaning over her shoulder, his breath on her neck, that thick blond hair brushing her cheek, she might have done Le Chatelier more justice.
‘Was I?’ His blue eyes sparkled at her. ‘That’s not how I remember it.’
Lennie sipped her wine. If her sixteen-year-old self could only see her now. Benji was lounging in his raw steel chair, the open neck and rolled-up sleeves of his tailored business shirt giving him an off-duty look. She wondered if he worked out. It sure as hell looked that way.
It was mid-afternoon now, the shadows lengthening and the autumn sun finding its way under the shade sail. Lennie had agreed to meet Benji for a drink at the end of her half-day shift, expecting to talk about VETSouth and the offer, but they’d been sitting here for over an hour, and so far neither of them had mentioned much about business.
‘You know, I was this close—’ Benji’s thumb and forefinger hovered a couple of millimetres apart in the air above Lennie’s left hand. ‘—to asking you out, like, half a dozen times that last year at high school.’
‘Yeah?’ Ha! So she hadn’t been imagining it after all. ‘What stopped you?’ Lennie was careful to keep her voice cool. She’d been waiting for an answer to that question for nigh on fifteen years.
‘Oh.’ Benji shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It was final year, you already knew you were headed north to vet school…You were so together, you know? You had everything all worked out. Knew exactly what you wanted.’ He gave her a thoughtful look. ‘I was an idiot. I didn’t know shit.’
Lennie smiled. ‘You seem to have done okay.’
He shrugged again, the corner of his mouth lifting. ‘I think maybe I was scared of getting tied up in something that…Well, you know…I think I was worried that if I started something with you, it might get serious.’
‘For a seventeen-year-old boy,’ she teased him, ‘you were doing a lot of thinking.’
‘Still waters, huh?’ Benji grinned. ‘Plus your mum scared the crap out of me.’
Ah, yes. Julia did tend to have that effect on people. ‘I didn’t realise you’d met her,’ Lennie said, casting her mind back.
Benji looked surprised. ‘The whole school met her, remember? She came and did that talk when she got back from Antarctica.’
Oh, that’s right. Lennie had done her best to blank that day out. As the memory of Julia’s lecture in the school auditorium came flooding back, she found herself cringing all over again—both at her mother and her own surly teenage lack of support. Julia had seemed so embarrassing back then, standing up there makeup-less and in all the wrong clothes. So serious. So severe. Like a member of some alien race descended upon Kimpton to instruct them. Not to mention way, way too young to be anyone’s mother.
‘Hey,’ Lennie said, her mind’s eye wandering to a figure over her mother’s shoulder on the auditorium’s stage, ‘remember that creepy relieving teacher we had in Year Twelve? Mr Fonte?’
‘Now he spent a few classes checking out Nicole Wilson’s legs—and yours. Remember that skirt you used to wear?’ Benji sighed. ‘God, I used to love summer.’
Lennie blushed, thinking of the gleam in her grandmother’s eyes as Lois had helped her take up the hem. I don’t suppose I need to ask who this is for. She glanced down at her chinos. When was
the last time she’d worn a skirt?
‘That feels like a long time ago,’ she said.
‘Does it?’ Benji looked at her.
‘Do you know, we’re nearly twice as old as we were then?’ she said, thinking aloud.
‘I know one thing.’ Benji leaned forward. ‘However old we get,’ he said, grin broadening, ‘we’ll always have chemistry.’
Lennie laughed. She hadn’t remembered him being funny. The downfall of her teenage self, perhaps—having taken every little thing Benji Cooper said and did so very seriously. She patted the hand he’d placed over hers.
‘Do you ever see Natalie Porter?’ she asked.
Benji’s attention had wandered over her shoulder, his face taking on a more professional smile. ‘Hey, Nate.’
Abruptly, Lennie felt the hair on the back of her neck rise, that spear point grazing her spine again.
‘Hey, Mitch,’ Benji said. ‘Hello, Rosalie.’
Removing her hand from Benji’s, Lennie turned in her chair. Mitch and Nate, dressed for town, were flanking a delighted-looking woman in sensible shoes and a business suit.
‘Hey.’ With the briefest of nods in their direction, Mitch continued making his way towards the bar. The woman, unwilling to break the stream of chatter she was directing into his ear, shot them a smile of acknowledgement as she passed.
‘Benji,’ Nate said. His smile, Lennie thought, had cooled a degree. ‘Hi Lennie. Good to see you again.’
As he moved on, Lennie turned back to Benji, trying to shrug off the ludicrous sense that she’d just been caught doing something she shouldn’t.
‘You know those guys?’ Benji asked, watching them recede out of earshot.
‘I was up at Broken Creek last week,’ she told him.
‘Nothing serious, I hope.’
She shook her head. ‘Brucella ovis testing, that’s all.’
Benji looked amused. ‘Well, I’m sure the rams were in good hands.’ He lowered his voice a little more. ‘That’s the bank manager Nate and Mitch are with.’
‘Well,’ Lennie joked, ‘she’s smiling, anyway.’