by Ford, Holly
Still clutching the duvet to her breasts, Lennie reached for Mitch’s shirt again. It was just a photograph, for god’s sake. It wasn’t like Emily was actually in the room. Clamping the duvet under her chin, she got herself into the shirt as modestly as she could.
It was high time she went home. Her grandmother would have had enough of looking after Pesh on her own by now. Hugging the shirt around her tightly, Lennie set off to find her clothes and Mitch’s shower, trying to shake the ridiculous sense that the eyes in the photograph had followed her to the door.
In the bathroom, her unease vanished as quickly as the mirror began to steam. Concentrating instead on the memory of Mitch’s body next to hers, his touch on her cheek, the look in his eyes as he’d kissed her goodbye, Lennie’s happiness started to climb. She’d said she wanted him just the way he was, hadn’t she? Well, Emily was part of that. A big part.
Lennie stepped out of the shower, wrapping herself in the harsh embrace of a towel that had clearly seen a few seasons’ duty. Mitch’s smile filled her mind. So there was a corner of him that would always belong to somebody else. So what? She could deal with that. Wiping the mirror off, she ran her hands through her hair. So he came with a ghost or two. It seemed a small price to pay.
She moved through the cottage, gathering her things as she imprinted the rooms—the background to Mitch’s days and nights—on her mind. Not pausing to question her motives for avoiding it too closely, Lennie left without making the bed.
•
Halfway back to Kimpton, the rain kicked in again, the spray taking visibility down to virtually nil on a road already slick with standing water. Navigating it carefully, Lennie hoped the rescue team had found their man. It was no night to be stuck in the mountains, that was for sure.
‘What a foul evening,’ Lois confirmed, as Lennie shook off her coat in the porch.
‘It’s pretty rough out there.’ Lennie bent to pat Pesh. As she straightened, her grandmother looked her up and down.
‘Well.’ Lois folded her lips, a smile in her eyes. ‘You look like you’ve had a nice afternoon.’
Lennie felt herself blush.
‘Are you hungry?’
She nodded, admiring her grandmother’s tact. She was famished, actually.
‘Dinner’s in the oven,’ Lois said. ‘It won’t be long.’
Having settled Pesh back in her crate, Lennie went to check on the fire in the lounge. The log basket was empty. Returning to the porch, she pulled on her wet-weather gear. The way it was raining out there, it looked like a good night for Jim’s calving overalls. Basket in hand, Lennie hurried through the downpour to the paddock gate.
As she loaded up from the woodpile behind the shed, she could just hear movement on the other side of the wall above the drum of the rain. Hefting the basket back towards the house, Lennie stopped to look in on Alice. ‘All good in here?’
Alice regarded her placidly from a pile of wood shavings on the floor. Having checked she had water and food, Lennie gave the hind’s ears a scratch. As far as Lennie knew, Alice had never spent a night inside in her life until this week, but since Lois had cleared out the shed for her, she’d taken to it with good grace.
‘We’ll let you out tomorrow,’ Lennie promised, in response to Alice’s heavy sigh.
Outside, the rain was starting to ease. Closing the shed door behind her, Lennie scanned the sky. It wasn’t quite dark. Was Mitch still up there somewhere? Thinking of him coming home to a dead fire and an empty house, Lennie had a sudden urge to drive back to Broken Creek, an aching need to feel his skin against hers. Maybe she should have stayed. Maybe she should have waited for him…But then, he hadn’t invited her to wait. Be a grown-up, Lennie ordered herself. Mitch was used to living alone. And as for coming home to an empty house, if he’d had a tough day he might very well prefer it.
Hoisting the log basket again, she crossed the lawn as fast as she could. At least there was no wind out here. Lennie hung up her jacket, chucked a dog towel over the puddle forming beneath it, and carried the wood into the lounge.
She found herself struggling to keep her eyes open over Lois’s shepherd’s pie. Having curled into bed shortly afterwards, Lennie had no idea how long she’d been asleep when her phone rang. Eyes still half-closed, she pressed it to her ear.
‘Hey.’ Mitch’s voice moved over her body. ‘Are you back home?’
‘Yeah.’ Lennie stretched a little. ‘Are you?’
‘I just got in.’
Her sleepy imagination filled in the room around him, the phone on the wall in the tiny kitchen. Oh, she wanted him beside her right now…‘What time is it?’
‘It’s eleven-thirty.’
God, was that all? It felt like about four in the morning. Lennie held the phone closer, keeping her voice low, conscious of Lois in the next room. ‘Did you find them?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You got them out?’
‘We got them out.’
‘Good.’ She smothered a yawn, sleep creeping back. ‘That’s good.’ Much as she wanted to stay on the line, she wasn’t sure she was going to be conscious for very many more words.
‘I just wanted to make sure you got home okay,’ Mitch said. ‘I’ll let you get back to sleep.’
•
‘Your grandfather called this morning.’
‘You talked to him?’ At the kitchen bench, Lennie looked up from the photographs of the villa’s interior she was arrowing through yet again on her screen, giving Lois her full attention.
‘No.’ There was an air of finality to her grandmother’s voice. ‘He left a message on the machine.’ Lois straightened her shoulders. ‘Somebody kept hanging up on me yesterday. I had a feeling it might be him, so I didn’t answer this time.’
Lennie sighed. ‘He’s behaving like a fourteen-year-old.’
‘You’re angry with him.’ Lois nodded. ‘Heaven knows I am too.’ She paused. ‘But something’s not right. This just isn’t Jim. It’s one thing to let me down—he’s had plenty of practise at that…’
‘He has?’ Lennie stared at her grandmother in surprise.
‘We weren’t born old, you know,’ Lois said. ‘And Jimmy in his twenties was no picnic, I can tell you that. He led me quite a dance before we sorted things out.’ Her eyes gleamed. ‘It was worse than you and Benji Cooper.’
Lennie laughed.
‘But you,’ Lois continued, serious again. ‘I can’t understand how he could abandon you when you needed him. There’s nothing Jim wouldn’t do for you. He’s adored you since the moment you were born. And to leave the clinic in the lurch…’
No, Lennie couldn’t understand that either. They looked at each other for a while.
‘When the Wilsons’ pony knocked him out, it was all I could do to get him to take the afternoon off to go to the doctor,’ Lois said. ‘Now he’s put himself on sick leave for a month?’
‘And gone fishing,’ Lennie pointed out. That was still the part that infuriated her most.
‘The salmon aren’t even running.’ Lois pursed her lips. ‘That man,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t deserve to be worried about. But I do.’ She stared hard at the coffee pot. ‘I’ve never seen Jimmy run away from anything. He’s up to something, I’m sure.’
Reaching across the bench, Lennie squeezed her grandmother’s hand. ‘What did he say? In the message, I mean?’
‘It’s for you, of course.’ Lois sniffed. ‘He says he’ll be back in two weeks. The Sunday after next.’ She turned away, wiping the already-clean draining board. ‘I’ll leave here on the Saturday.’
‘You could stay,’ Lennie said. ‘You could see him.’
‘He doesn’t want to talk to me,’ Lois said. ‘He’s made that perfectly clear.’
‘You’ve got just as much right to be here as he has. It’s your house too.’
Her grandmother smiled tightly. Dusting her hands on her trousers, she looked around. ‘There was a time when I thought I’d be leaving this place in a
box.’ Suddenly, Lois’s eyes flared.
‘What is it?’
‘The double burial plot,’ her grandmother said. ‘Who’s going to get it? Kimpton Cemetery’s full.’
‘Grandma…’
Lois gave herself a small shake. ‘Oh Lennie, I’m sorry.’ Rounding the bench, she stroked Lennie’s cheek. ‘You were in such a good mood. Now I’ve made you all sad.’
Lennie leaned her face into her grandmother’s hand. ‘It’s been so nice having you here. I wish you could stay.’
Lois tilted her head. ‘You’re happy here, aren’t you?’
‘I think I am.’ A smile crept back onto Lennie’s face.
‘Don’t tell me he was right all those years,’ Lois said.
‘Who?’
‘Your grandfather.’ Lois rolled her eyes. ‘All the time you were gallivanting around the world, he was sure that working at Central Vets was what you really wanted.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Lennie said. ‘He wasn’t right. Not then.’ She shot her grandmother a look. ‘But maybe he is now.’
Lois’s brows rose. ‘Are you saying you might stay?’
Lennie hesitated, thinking it through. ‘I like living here. And I’m starting to feel like maybe I can do some good. Make a difference.’ She bit her lip. ‘Does that sound stupid?’
‘No,’ Lois said. ‘No, Len, that doesn’t sound stupid at all.’
‘I’ll always be learning. But what I already know—well, if I share it around, it can really help people here. I mean, Kimpton might be small, but…’ She frowned, trying to put what she was beginning to understand into words.
‘But it matters,’ Lois said. ‘It matters to you. And you matter to it.’
Lennie nodded. ‘Kimpton matters to you as well,’ she said. ‘This house matters.’ She watched Lois’s face. ‘Grandma, you were happy here too.’
‘I was.’ Lois drew herself up. ‘But there’s no use crying over spilled milk.’ She met Lennie’s eyes. ‘Be happy, sweetheart. Life’s too short to be anything else. Just think of that poor young couple last night.’
‘What couple?’
‘You didn’t hear the radio this morning?’
Lennie shook her head.
‘Tourists in a rental car,’ Lois said. ‘They missed a hairpin bend on Gorge Road and went over the bluff. Mountain Rescue pulled them out two k’s downstream.’
Lennie’s stomach twisted. ‘Alive?’
Her grandmother’s face told her the answer she already knew. ‘No,’ Lois said. ‘No, they didn’t survive. Such a shame. They were only twenty-something.’ She stopped. ‘Sweetheart? Are you alright?’
‘I’m fine.’ With a mounting feeling of dread, Lennie reached for her phone. ‘I just have to make a call.’
Upstairs in her bedroom, she listened to Mitch’s landline ring. And ring. At last, his machine kicked in.
‘Mitch?’ Lennie waited a beat, still hoping he might pick up. ‘It’s me…I just heard what happened last night.’ She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘I’m so sorry. Are you okay?’
For a second—two—she listened to the silence roll. Pressing end at last, Lennie sat staring out at the distant mountain range. God, she wished she had some idea where he was today. She brought up his mobile number.
‘Can you call me?’ she said quietly to his voicemail. ‘Please?’
•
Sometimes Mitch just needs a bit of time out.
That was what Nate had told her, right? Maybe this was one of those times. In the recovery room at the clinic, Lennie looked at her phone screen. Maybe that was all this was.
We’ll see him again when he’s ready.
Nate and Tess knew to give Mitch space. So could she.
But it had been two days, and the sick feeling she got in her stomach every time she thought of Mitch having to unload another set of body bags refused to fade. Lennie couldn’t shake the sense that somewhere over those hills was a world of pain. She should have stayed on the phone to him that night. She should have been there, waiting for him when he got home. So he wasn’t alone in the dark, thinking about a dead woman and a loss that neither Lennie nor anyone else was ever going to replace.
‘Mitch, please,’ Lennie breathed into the phone. ‘Just…I need to know that you’re okay.’
Twenty
‘Len, I don’t think you should panic,’ Del said, when Lennie called her the following day. In the background, Lennie heard a door close. ‘We’re looking at a lot of good here. He dealt with a tough situation, he got through the job, he got himself home safely and he checked in with the person who, if you ask me, he’s frightening himself shitless by falling in love with. If one of my guys came to me with a checklist like that, I’d give him a gold star.’
Lennie swallowed.
‘If you’re right and it did all turn to custard for him after that, then it’s hardly surprising. Your guy had a hell of a day.’
‘I wish he’d call me back,’ Lennie said hoarsely, trying to keep the judder out of her voice. ‘That he’d talk to me.’
‘His safe places,’ Del said. ‘These huts up in the hills. Do they have phones?’
‘No.’ Lennie sniffed.
‘Mobile coverage?’
‘No.’ She blew out her breath. Del was right. Mitch probably couldn’t call her right now if he wanted to.
‘Hon, I can hear how much it’s hurting, and I’m sorry. But this is the coping mechanism he uses, yeah? It’s what works for him.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘So you need to give him some time. It sounds to me like you’re dealing with a pretty strong guy. Let him work it through, run his processes. You might be surprised what he comes back with.’
From the crate beside her, Pesh watched worriedly as Lennie pocketed her phone again. Lennie opened the door and buried her face in the dog’s fur. ‘It’s alright, pretty girl,’ she whispered. ‘Everything’s going to be okay.’
•
Lennie was sitting in The Hard Yard drinking a coffee when Mitch’s name popped up on her phone at last. For a fraction of a second, she felt a spike of joy.
I’m sorry, she read. I thought I could do this.
Stomach churning, Lennie opened the full text.
I can’t.
As the knot of nausea made its way to her throat, she sat staring at the message, trying to make it mean something other than it did. I can’t. In front of her, the phone screen was starting to blur.
‘Are you okay?’ Fifi paused beside the table, dishrag in hand.
Lennie nodded quickly, fumbling to untie Pesh’s lead from the arm of her chair as she scrambled to her feet. The next thing she knew she was out on the street, walking god knew where.
‘Hey,’ Fifi called behind her, ‘you forgot your coffee!’
Lennie waved a hand of apology at her without looking back. How had this happened? How had she allowed herself to fall in love with a man who’d made it abundantly clear he was too damaged to care for somebody else? For god’s sake, he’d told her not to do it. He’d told her she was going to get hurt. And now she didn’t even have anger to hide behind because however bad this was for her, she knew Mitch was hurting worse, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about that. She couldn’t help. She couldn’t help, because she wasn’t the person he needed.
Lennie took a breath, the sob that came with it hanging over the empty street. She needed to slow down. Pesh wasn’t supposed to be walking this fast. In the little reserve on the corner, Lennie stopped, struggling to pull the pieces back together. She had a client in ten minutes. She looked down at Pesh. The dog was watching her anxiously, a touch of fear in the big brown eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ Lennie said. ‘It’s okay. I’ll be okay.’ She ran her hand over the shaven fur around Pesh’s wounds. ‘What doesn’t kill you,’ she managed, ‘right?’
Last time she’d seen Mitch he was smiling. That was something. She should hold on to that.
‘We have to get back,’ she told Pe
sh. ‘We patch ourselves up and we get on with it. There’s nothing else for it. Nothing we can do.’
•
It was three days later when she saw him. Lennie pulled into the Kimpton service station and there Mitch was. She hadn’t realised how deeply the shape of his body was burned into her mind, how instantly it could move her.
He was beside the Land Cruiser, his back to her as he lifted a final can of Avgas onto the tray. Lennie got out slowly. Every instinct she had was telling her to go to him, to put her arms around him and repeat the mantra she had to keep reciting to herself a hundred times every day. It will be okay.
Mitch opened the driver’s door. As he turned to get in, he saw her. Lennie watched him freeze. The look of loss in his eyes was worse than she’d imagined, pain leaping across the forecourt like a spark. Her heart threatening to thump out of her chest, Lennie took a step towards him.
With an almost imperceptible shake of his head, Mitch got into the cab and shut the door. He drove off without looking at her again.
As the Land Cruiser pulled into the road, Lennie’s breath shuddered out. She felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. For a crazy moment, she thought about going after him, just getting in her truck and…and what? Running him off the road and making him talk to her? Demanding he get over the violent death of the love of his life?
If it was possible to feel worse than she did right now, Lennie hoped to hell she never got there. She turned to the pump.
‘Gidday Lennie. I’ll take care of that for you.’ Joe, the manager, popped the fuel tank, peering into the back of the truck. ‘How’s Pesh doing?’
‘She’s good.’ Lennie dredged up the words. ‘Coming right.’
‘Glad to hear it. How much can we do you for today?’
‘Fill it up, please,’ she heard herself say.