High Country Hero

by Ford, Holly

‘What do you think?’ she said, as Lennie lingered in the big bay window. ‘Is it what you’re looking for? Can you see yourself living here?’

  ‘It’s lovely,’ Lennie said. The view was even better than she’d imagined, the ranges that stood between her and the Broken Creek valley perfectly framed. ‘Really lovely.’

  Her grandmother slipped an arm round her waist. ‘Onwards and upwards,’ she said softly, ‘eh, Len?’

  Right. Summoning a smile, Lennie leaned into Lois’s shoulder. Right…

  ‘You’ll want to think about it,’ Jeanette said kindly. ‘Come back with a builder, maybe.’

  ‘We could talk to Barry Jones,’ Lois said. ‘See if he’ll take a look? He made a beautiful job of Pam’s extension last year.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lennie said. Was she hearing things, or was there a helicopter somewhere up there in that big blue sky? ‘Yes.’ She turned to Jeanette. ‘I’ll think about it. I’ll do that.’

  •

  Five hours later, Lois paused on the landing beside Lennie’s bedroom doorway, a wry smile on her face. ‘I can’t believe you’re finally going out with Benji Cooper.’ She inclined her head, assessing Lennie’s open wardrobe. ‘Wear something pretty. Cheer yourself up.’

  Lennie sighed. ‘I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘No,’ Lois said, ‘that’s the point. You’ll feel better if you put on a dress.’

  ‘It’s four degrees out there, Grandma.’

  ‘It’s not a picnic,’ Lois said acidly. ‘I’m sure there’ll be heating inside. You only have to get from the door to Benji’s car.’ Her gaze fell on something over Lennie’s shoulder. ‘Wear that sweet little gypsy thing you wore when we went to the Opera House bar. You looked so lovely in that.’

  Lennie turned to the hanger of boho paisley chiffon. ‘It’s a bit much for dinner in Alnwick, don’t you think?’

  ‘Sweetheart,’ Lois said, ‘if I could still wear a dress like that I’d be doing the dishes in it.’ Making her way into the room, she put an arm around Lennie’s shoulders, removing the mini dress from the rail with the other. ‘Wear it.’ Lois laid it out on the bed, running her hand along one half of the tie-neck. ‘Enjoy it.’

  As Lennie studied the dress doubtfully, her grandmother leaned in a little closer, tightening her grip on Lennie’s shoulder.

  ‘You’re going out for a lovely meal with a charming, funny, gorgeous man. Make the most of it. Be in the moment. Live!’ Lois gave her another squeeze. ‘Don’t waste your time being unhappy over other people’s choices.’ She let go. ‘Come on, let me see you in it.’

  Giving in, Lennie shed her robe and slipped the dress over her head.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Lois said firmly, tying the neck.

  Looking at herself in the mirror, Lennie had to admit that she did feel better. Mostly because—she adjusted a gauzy sleeve—she looked like somebody else. A girl who was nothing but thrilled to be going out on a Saturday night with Benji Cooper.

  ‘You know, before I was married, I tried to go out to a party once wearing something very like this,’ Lois said. ‘My dad wouldn’t let me out the door.’

  Lennie smiled.

  Her grandmother gave her a mischievous look. ‘I had to get changed in the back of Jimmy’s car.’

  When Lois had drifted out, a gleam still in her eyes, Lennie pulled the bedroom curtain aside, surveying the frosty blackness outside. Going back to the wardrobe, she got out the pristine box containing the tall, stacked-heel suede boots she’d bought herself as a moving-back-to-New-Zealand-for-winter bribe. A fine, dry night with almost no walking involved was the perfect time to finally wear them.

  Half an hour later, Benji’s headlights swept up the drive just the right amount of late. Still secured on compulsory crate rest, Pesh settled for a single sulky bark.

  ‘See you later, pretty girl.’ Lennie slid a hand through the bars. ‘Be good for Grandma tonight. I’ll be back before too long.’

  Slinging her coat over her arm, she met Benji at the front door. Looking at him standing there in the glow of the porch light, his broad shoulders hunched below the weight of a fleece-lined khaki trucker jacket, Lennie felt a fresh surge of appreciation. If he couldn’t cheer a girl up, nobody could.

  ‘You look great,’ Benji said, his blue eyes sparkling as his gaze lowered. ‘I’d been wondering if you still had legs.’ He coughed. ‘Hey, Lois. Good to see you.’

  ‘Hello Benji.’ Lois sounded amused.

  ‘How’s Jim?’

  Oh shit. Lennie turned to her grandmother, trying to beam a warning.

  ‘He makes a dreadful patient,’ Lois said smoothly, ‘as I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear.’

  Benji gave a sympathetic laugh. Pulling her coat on, Lennie breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘Well.’ Lois took control of the door, seeing them off into the night. ‘You two kids have fun out there.’

  ‘I’ll have her home before midnight,’ Benji joked, ‘I swear.’ In the Commodore’s passenger seat, Lennie watched the lights of Kimpton come into view. With no moon in the sky, the hills around the town were totally dark, the landscape lost in blackness.

  ‘You know, those boots are pretty distracting,’ Benji said, as they drove the well-lit, all-but-deserted main street. ‘I’m trying to figure them out. Do they zip or pull?’

  Rolling her eyes, Lennie draped her coat over her knees. ‘Better?’ she said.

  ‘Much.’

  Reaching the town limits, Benji put his foot down again. Unsurprisingly in the Kimpton Valley on a freezing Saturday night, they had the road pretty much to themselves, and it wasn’t long before they were heading into the first corner of Snake Gully. As Benji chatted, at ease on the route he took to work every day, Lennie looked out at the headlights sweeping the hairpin bends, blazing on the yellow speed warning signs, the beams piercing the darkness beyond the battered Armco to slide over the rocks on the other side of the creek far below. As the road climbed, she could see the faint orange glow of the district’s main centre behind the hills.

  After a few kilometres more the road eased out, the rocks and scrub to either side giving way to fence lines again, the eyes of stock glowing green in the paddocks behind the wire. At the T-junction, Benji turned for Alnwick, speeding up on the wide, undamaged seal of the state highway that hugged the lake.

  In the new industrial park on the outskirts of town, VETSouth’s impeccable headquarters gleamed, a battery of security lights and CCTV cameras lighting up the manicured parking lot in front of its faux-schist entrance pillars. A banner promoting the Autumn Festival hung from the retro lamppost outside.

  As they got closer to the centre of town, the streets narrowed to the quaint, tree-lined huddle that drew the tourist crowds, the dry-leaved branches festooned with fairy lights. In a testament to how long Lennie had been in Kimpton, Alnwick felt like a metropolis, the pavements busy with people, the side streets almost overflowing with parked cars.

  The restaurant was crowded too. It wasn’t quite the tide of strangers Lennie had been feeling nostalgic for—she spotted a client the moment she walked in the door—but following the maître d’ through the dark, buzzing room, she felt her spirits lift. Fun was catching. By the third course of the tasting menu, Lennie discovered she was having a good time.

  ‘Here, try this one.’ She slid her latest wine match across the table to Benji.

  Taking a sip, he rolled it around his mouth. ‘It’s good.’ He reached for the menu. ‘What is it again?’

  ‘Montepulciano d’Abruzzo.’ Lennie smiled, enjoying the familiar name. ‘We used to buy it for three euros a litre in the pizzeria across the street from park headquarters.’ As Benji passed the glass back, she took a mouthful herself. ‘This one’s a tad smoother.’

  ‘You know, I’m curious.’ Assembling a forkful of goat ragu, Benji gave her a considering look. ‘Where exactly in the world were you when you figured out that what you really wanted to do with your life was to run a small business in Kimpton?
’

  Lennie let out a small laugh. ‘I’d hardly say I was doing that.’

  ‘But you’re thinking about it,’ Benji said, ‘right? I mean, that’s the other option. If Jim doesn’t sell the practice to us, then you take over.’

  ‘Well, I guess that’s an option,’ she stammered, taken aback. ‘It’s not the only one.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Benji reached for the single glass of pinot noir he’d been nursing. ‘Paul wants out. Jim’s had him doing the heavy lifting in more ways than one for a while now, and he’s had enough. He’s told me he’s prepared to stay on as a vet for a few more years, but he doesn’t want the burden of running the place.’

  She picked at her plate, avoiding Benji’s eyes.

  ‘Managing a business isn’t everybody’s idea of fun,’ he said. ‘There’s all the HR stuff, for a start. I spent four hours today going over graduate resumes. The way junior staff turn over out here, recruitment’s a full-time job. You need to have a training programme in place. Then there’s payroll, budgeting, billing, maintenance—’

  Lennie glanced up sharply. ‘Are you saying I couldn’t do all that?’

  Benji burst out laughing. ‘I’m not that stupid,’ he said. ‘You could do it with one hand tied behind your back.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s not chasing wolves in Abruzzo. It’s not performing an emergency thoracotomy or sending helicopters to rescue injured deer. That’s what I’m saying.’

  Lennie’s appetite was slipping. She took another, larger mouthful of wine.

  ‘There’s pressure,’ Benji went on, ‘don’t get me wrong. Plenty of it. But mostly, it’s kind of tedious.’ He raised his eyebrows at her. ‘Have you ever had a boring job?’

  What was this, a one-on-one sales pitch? Was that what this dinner was about? ‘Are you trying to scare me away?’ Lennie kept her voice even.

  ‘No.’ He smiled. ‘Not at all. Far from it. I like having you around.’ Benji paused, the familiar sparkle in his eyes. ‘I won’t say I haven’t been hoping the two of us end up on the same side. But if not, I can handle that too.’ His smile wound up a notch. ‘Nothing wrong with a bit of competition. I’m just trying to work out what it is you really want.’

  Well, that was ironic. Lennie looked at him. ‘What is it you want, Benji?’

  His eyes flared.

  ‘How are we going with the goat here, folks?’ The waiter hove up out of the busy darkness. ‘Everything okay?’

  Benji looked at Lennie inquiringly.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘everything’s great.’

  ‘You need a little more of the Montepulciano?’

  ‘No,’ Lennie said. ‘Thank you, I’m good.’

  ‘Oops.’ The waiter seized the candle on the table between them as it guttered and died. ‘I’ll just get you a new one of those.’

  ‘Hey,’ Benji said, as the waiter moved off, ‘that reminds me. You’ll never guess who LinkedIn with me the other day. Remember Kendall Grant?’

  ‘That girl who blew up the science lab?’ Lennie leaned forward, interested despite herself.

  ‘She’s a disaster recovery consultant now.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘Not a word of a lie.’ Benji pulled out his phone. ‘Look, I’ll show you.’

  •

  When they made their way out of the thinning restaurant a couple of hours later, Lennie found herself shivering. The night seemed to be even colder. The replica Victorian street lamps were actually smoking in the still air, their orange glow bouncing off the small fog above the willow trees that marked the line of the river. Hunching her shoulders, Lennie put her head down, negotiating her route across the undulating pavement under the trees. As she caught her heel, Benji put a hand to her elbow.

  ‘Whoa,’ he said. ‘Easy there.’

  Laughing, Lennie took his arm, leaning into his welcome warmth. ‘Just as well it’s not raining,’ she joked, ‘or you’d have to carry me back to the car.’

  ‘It might be faster.’

  ‘Sorry.’ She put a little more weight on his forearm.

  Benji held her closer to his side. ‘I’m not complaining.’

  As the town limits of Alnwick receded in the Commodore’s mirrors and the darkness of the open road stretched ahead, Lennie could feel the effects of six different wines beginning to catch up on her. Seeing Benji stretch his shoulders, she gave herself a small shake. The least she could do was stay awake and keep him company.

  ‘We should do this again,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah.’ Lennie sat up a little straighter. ‘We should. Oh, look out.’

  Benji swerved smoothly to avoid the hedgehog sauntering into the road.

  ‘I had a really good time tonight,’ she went on. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I did too.’ His hands adjusted something on the steering wheel. ‘You know, we’ve still got an hour or so before curfew. You want to call in home for a drink on our way past?’

  His place? Lennie hesitated, curiosity wrestling with her desire for sleep. The last thing she needed was another drink. Then again, Benji had only had one all night. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘That’d be nice.’

  She thought she saw his focus shift as she ran her hands over her knees. Suddenly unsure what to do with them next, she put an elbow on her armrest, looking out at the marker posts flickering by as she moved her hair to her other shoulder.

  In what felt like no time at all, the road was curving into the gully again. The first hairpin woke her up fully. As Benji navigated the bends, Lennie found herself trying to picture his house. Sensible Kimpton brick-and-tile? Or something more—

  Jesus Christ. The car wasn’t taking the corner.

  Gripping the armrest, she watched in disbelief as the world began to revolve, the Armco looming up out of the dark beside her. They were going over the bluff. They were going over the—

  Lennie closed her eyes. This was it? Oh god no, not here, not now. She couldn’t die down a ravine with Benji Cooper…

  Her head snapped sideways as they hit the barrier, but Lennie kept her eyes shut, determined not to witness the moment the car started to fall. One split-second was proceeding to the next with eerie clarity, giving her way too much time to think about exactly how fucked up this was, and then she was being flung back the other way, tossed like a doll in a dryer, and she didn’t know if the Commodore was airborne or not.

  I’m sorry, her brain kept repeating. I’m sorry. Please don’t let it be Mitch who gets sent. Please don’t let him see this.

  The car hit something harder. It felt like the ground.

  She kept her eyelids squeezed closed, waiting for the next impact.

  ‘Lennie!’

  She opened her eyes.

  ‘Jesus…’ Benji was in her face, his hands on her body as he unfastened her seatbelt. ‘Lennie, are you alright?’

  The Commodore had stopped moving. As Benji took her by the shoulders, lifting her up, Lennie looked around at the oddly angled world. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘We’re in a ditch. Come on, take my hand, you need to climb out this way.’

  ‘What ditch?’

  ‘The ditch on the side of the road.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Look, it doesn’t matter what ditch, we just need to get you out of there…’

  ‘We didn’t go over the cliff?’

  ‘No.’ Benji hauled her towards him. ‘When we went into the Armco it spun us back across the road.’

  As the orientation of the car finally clicked, Lennie freed her legs from the footwell and let Benji help her up over the driver’s seat. Clambering out into the long, frosty grass, she turned to look down at the Commodore jammed on its side. ‘We didn’t go over the cliff.’ Suddenly, her knees gave way.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Benji squatted in front of her. ‘Should I call 111?’

  ‘No! No…’ Shaking her head, Lennie winced in pain. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Is your neck hurt?’

  ‘A bit of whiplash,’ she said firmly. ‘Don’t c
all an ambulance. Please.’

  ‘You’re shaking.’

  She looked at him. ‘So are you.’

  Sitting back on the grass beside her, he let out a long, shuddering breath. ‘God, I’m so sorry. Jesus…’

  She put her hand on his arm. ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘We must have…’ Getting up again, Benji turned to look at the road. ‘We must have hit black ice. I didn’t see anything. There was no warning. The whole thing just went. Lennie, I’m…God, I’m—’

  ‘It’s okay.’ She reached up and took his hand. ‘We’re okay.’ He crouched behind her in the grass, holding her shoulders. ‘Are you sure you’re not hurt?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Running a hand over her bare thighs, Lennie glanced at the frost melting around her feet. ‘You might owe me a new pair of boots, though.’

  Benji let out a short laugh. She could practically feel the adrenaline pumping through him—it was pumping through her veins too. He draped his coat over her legs, his hands remaining on her knees, his stubbled jaw resting beside her cheek.

  ‘If I’d damaged these, I’d never forgive myself,’ he said.

  Lennie leaned back against him. For a moment, she turned her cheek into his chest, feeling the rapid thud of his heart as she waited for her own to settle. It felt good to be held. But she couldn’t kid herself that it was enough. That she could move on. She couldn’t. Not here. Not with Benji, not with her life. Not in this valley, knowing Mitch was watching. How could she ever be happy when she knew he was in pain?

  ‘Benji?’ Lifting his hands from her knees, Lennie held them together in hers. ‘I can’t do this.’

  ‘Do what?’ he said into her ear. ‘We haven’t done anything.’

  ‘I know.’ She squeezed his hands. ‘And I can’t do it anymore.’ She took a breath. ‘I can’t do any of this. I just can’t.’

  ‘Hey.’ Benji held her a little closer. ‘Shh, it’s okay.’ He paused. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m going to tell Grandpa he should sell the practice to VETSouth,’ Lennie said. ‘And I’m going back to Sydney.’ Or somewhere. Somewhere out of sight, out of mind, somewhere she didn’t have to worry about hurting anyone but herself.