by Ford, Holly
‘It’s six o’clock.’ He gave her an even, thoughtful look. ‘If you want to be back by seven, we’d better get going.’
Ugh, he was right. Reaching for him, Lennie smiled. Time to announce this relationship to the Kimpton Valley, then. Taking her hands, Mitch held them loosely in his lap.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking…’
Already? It was a bit early in the morning for that, wasn’t it? Lennie watched him more closely, unease beginning to stir. He didn’t look like a man who’d climbed out of bed a couple of minutes ago. Just how long had he been awake, exactly?
‘I might get out of here for a day or two,’ Mitch said. ‘Head upriver. There’s a hut above the gorge, by the headwaters.’
Oh. Lennie hung her head, trying not to let everything that was hurtling through her mind play out on her face. You can’t be hurt, she ordered herself. He was doing exactly what she’d asked him to do. He was telling her. But Jesus, was this going to happen every time they had sex? She gave herself a mental shake. So what if it did? Was that so terrible? She just had to trust that he’d come back.
‘Can you call me,’ Lennie said, channelling calm as best she could, ‘when you get home? Let me know that you’re okay?’
‘Yeah.’ Mitch’s voice was uncertain. ‘I mean, sure, I could do that.’ He paused. ‘But I was thinking…Well, I was wondering if maybe you might want to come with me.’
Twenty-six
Lennie opened her grandparents’ front door warily. Was there any chance she might get in and out without seeing Jim? Thankfully, it had been Lois who had answered the phone last night when she’d called from Broken Creek to tell them she wasn’t coming home. In the kitchen, the radio was on. Lennie slunk through the hall, heading for her room.
‘Good morning.’ Halfway down the stairs, Jim paused to survey her.
‘Grandpa—’ Lennie held up a hand. ‘Don’t even start. I need to get to work. I’ve got a client in forty minutes.’
‘I wasn’t going to say anything.’ Jim resumed his descent.
She watched him suspiciously. ‘You weren’t?’
‘You’re a grown woman.’ He patted her on the shoulder as he passed. ‘Who you see is up to you.’
‘Thank you.’ Her foot on the first step, Lennie hesitated. ‘You don’t have to worry,’ she said. ‘I mean, I know you thought it was a bad idea for me to get involved with Mitch, but…’
Jim shook his head. ‘Maybe I did,’ he said. ‘But without your grandmother here, I was starting to forget how very little I know.’
Lennie smiled. ‘In that case,’ she said, ‘I’ve got a favour to ask you.’
Her grandfather raised his eyebrows expectantly.
‘Can you and Grandma look after Pesh this weekend? I’ve got somewhere to go.’
•
The braids of Broken Creek River were catching the last light in the Friday night sky as Mitch flew upriver. Beside him, Lennie watched the broad path they were following into the mountains narrow, the glow of the river extinguished by the walls of a gorge. From this height, she could see over the ridges the sun had already left to the high basins where it still lingered on the snow.
In a few minutes more, the terrace they’d been crossing fell away into broken ridges and the river widened again, the water carving opalescent paths across the soft grey shadows of the shingle. Straight ahead, the peak that divided the river loomed sheer, an inhospitable island in the ancient moraine, and behind it the snow-covered bulk of the Alps cut off the sky.
As the helicopter lowered, Lennie could make out a rectangle of roofing iron at the edge of the bush that fringed the river flat.
‘This is it,’ Mitch said. ‘Gorge Hut.’
She watched the skids settle into the wash-swept tussock. Mitch shut the helicopter down.
Clambering out, Lennie felt the embrace of stillness. The evening was windless, the air raw with cold. The only thing she could hear around them, the only sound for god knew how far, was the rush of the river in its bed. She stood gazing at the peaks that surrounded them, the jagged faces close. The river’s narrow cut and the high tableland above the gorge were the only gates in the mountain walls. Against the bush, the hut stood straight, its tin walls mellow with age, its porch stacked high with firewood.
‘Okay?’ Mitch said quietly.
Lennie nodded. It was more than okay.
Straightening from the cargo pod, he walked to her, looking into her face, his dark eyes warm. His kiss was soft and slow, his hand tracing the line of her neck, settling under her thickly padded collar.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go light the fire.’
Inside, Lennie watched him coax the old range into life, the massive landscape around them, its silence, a third presence in the room. There were names carved into the wooden table in front of her, columns of men, a scatter of women among them. Mitch’s name in a child’s letters, the date beside it nearly three decades old. Nate’s was there too. And dated just last year, the cuts much fresher, a T. Drummond.
‘Tess asked if we wanted to have lunch with them on Sunday,’ Mitch said. ‘I told her I wasn’t sure what time you needed to get back.’
‘I’d love to.’ Lennie glanced up from the lines of his name on the tabletop. ‘I’m not in any hurry.’
‘We do that the first year we work the autumn muster.’ Reaching a half-empty bottle of whisky down from the mantelpiece, Mitch set it on the table. ‘Carve our names there.’
‘How old were you?’
Putting a couple of mugs beside the bottle, he checked the date. ‘We would have been seven, Nate and I. I’d just got my first dog. Dad was teaching me to work her.’
Up here, in this place, the mountains he’d grown up in around him, Lennie could almost see it, catch a glimpse of the boy he used to be.
‘Tell me about that,’ she said. ‘Your first muster.’ She leaned forward as he swung in behind her on the battered chair.
Mitch wrapped an arm around her ribs, settling her into his body as he poured the Scotch. ‘Okay.’
•
Hours later, waking in the dregs of the night, Lennie realised that the shoulder she’d drifted to sleep on was gone. Through the window of the hut, she could see a faint line of grey above the eastern mountains. She lay listening to the dark, hearing only the clunk of the range in the next-door room as the fire moved inside it and the more distant rush of the river over stones.
Lennie sat up, feeling for her clothes on the opposite bunk. Slipping into her shirt and jeans, she pulled on a pair of socks, wrapped the sleeping bag around her shoulders and padded out. The range had been stoked, its chimney clanking with fresh heat, but the room around it was empty. She picked her way to the door.
‘Hey.’ Mitch’s voice rose from a huddle of deeper shadow on the porch step, the pale grey of the river behind him.
‘Was it something I said?’ Lennie smiled.
He opened his arm to her as she settled on the step beside him. ‘I didn’t want to wake you.’
She leaned into his neck. ‘What are we watching?’
‘The sun’s about to come up.’ Mitch rearranged the sleeping bag a little, tightening it around her shoulders. ‘I like this time of the day,’ he said softly. ‘You know it’s about to get lighter. You just have to wait.’
They sat without speaking as, with infinite slowness, the sky above the hills began to change. Lennie watched the solid sheet of darkness dapple to pale blue and gold, the contours of the western slopes fade up, sunlight picking them out rock by rock, valley by valley. Across the still-shadowed river, the snowy faces of the northern peaks were starting to glow.
Between one breath and the next, the golden light was pouring over the flat, edging the frosted tussock blades, gilding the low mist hanging over the river. As it reached the hut, Lennie turned her head, raising her hand to Mitch’s face, tracing the line of the muscle that worked his smile, his unshaven cheek rough beneath her fingertips. ‘Hel
lo,’ she said.
His mouth curved. ‘There you are.’
Lennie’s lips parted to his, the sun warm on her skin as he opened the sleeping bag and laid her back against it.
•
On Sunday night, Lennie sat in her grandparents’ empty kitchen staring down at the phone in her hands. Chicago had called. Friday afternoon, their time.
Outside, headlights raked the window. As the garage door squeaked open, Jim’s truck drove in. According to the note on the bench, her grandparents had taken Pesh into Alnwick with them for the day. A more interesting view, Lennie concurred, than the one Pesh would have had from her crate. Through the window, Lennie watched her grandfather lift a resigned Pesh out of the truck. Lois commandeered the lead.
‘You’re home,’ her grandmother beamed, doing what she could to restrain Pesh as they arrived at the kitchen door.
Lennie hurried over to relieve Lois of the dog. ‘Has she been okay?’ In her final week of crate rest, Pesh was getting to be quite a handful.
‘Good as gold,’ Lois told her firmly.
‘I needed a bit of arm exercise,’ Jim added, hanging up his coat in the hall.
‘I’m sorry,’ Lennie said guiltily, hugging Pesh. ‘Did she get a bit much? I shouldn’t have saddled you with her for so long.’
Her grandfather gave a dismissive shrug. ‘It was fine.’ Pesh sniffed hopefully as he set the white plastic bag in his hand down on the bench.
‘Have you eaten?’ Lois asked. ‘We brought some leftover Chinese.’
‘Anyway,’ Jim went on, as Lennie lifted the corner of a takeaway lid, ‘we’ll get you back for dog-sitting duty next weekend.’
‘Why?’ She looked from him to Lois. ‘What’s happening?’
‘We’ve just booked tickets to Sydney,’ her grandmother said, with ill-concealed glee. ‘We’re going to stay with Julia for a week.’
Oh, thank god for that. Lennie beamed at her grandfather. ‘You’re going to see the cognitive impairment guy?’
‘We’re going to see The Lion King,’ Jim said.
Lennie pressed a hand to her mouth.
‘You’re in charge of Alice and Smudge and the house,’ he told her sternly, the slightest of twinkles in his grey eyes. ‘Oh, and you’ll need to get yourself some more firewood. We’re nearly out.’ He frowned suddenly. ‘I could have sworn I ordered a load.’
Lennie and Lois exchanged a glance. ‘I’ll take care of everything,’ Lennie said, ‘don’t worry.’
‘So how was your weekend?’ Her grandmother shot her a smile. ‘Did you have a good time?’
Lennie nodded, letting the smile on her own face tell the story.
‘Oh sweetheart, I’m so glad.’ Lois squeezed her arm. ‘For both of you.’
‘Has Chicago called back?’ Jim asked brusquely, opening the fridge door.
Lennie sighed. ‘Yeah.’
‘And?’ Her grandfather turned. ‘What did they say?’
‘They want to set up a second interview.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘I only just picked up the message.’ Lennie shook her head. ‘I can’t call them back till Tuesday now.’
‘Well.’ Jim gave her an even look. ‘It sounds like you’ve got some thinking to do.’
Upstairs in her bedroom, Lennie stared at her mobile again. Settling into her pillows, she listened to Mitch’s landline ring, imagining the room around it, the phone on the wall, the answering machine on the kitchen bench beneath it, his footsteps moving down the shadowed hall.
‘Hello?’
Lennie closed her eyes at the sound of his voice. Just the thought of his hands on the receiver was making her body ache. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘It’s me.’
‘You’re home?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Jesus, how was it possible to miss somebody this much when you’d left them less than three hours ago? She still had the scent of his freshly showered body on her shirt, could still see him leaning against the door of her truck as he kissed her goodbye. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I’m going to have the house to myself next weekend. Do you want to come over?’
Twenty-seven
Two kilometres down Chalfont Road on Saturday morning, Lennie stood in a square of sun in the villa’s little kitchen-side sitting room, looking at the dents her boots had made in the frost on the wide stretch of lawn outside. The fires in the living rooms were lit for her second viewing today, and there was a tiny bunch of violets on the windowsill, an early harvest garnered under the oaks on the fence line, their subtle scent wafting on the warm air.
She’d waved Lois and Jim off on their drive to the airport yesterday, and the novelty of having a night to herself had almost made up for the fact that the high winds battering the valley all week had finally dropped and Mitch was so slammed with charter work he couldn’t make it until Monday.
Beside her, Barry Jones had stopped knocking for studs and pulled out his measuring tape, checking the feasibility of the French doors that would bring even more of this gorgeous winter sun streaming in through the bare oak branches to light up what could be Lennie’s fresh new white kitchen walls. She and Barry had been wandering from room to room for the best part of an hour, Jeanette leaving them to it, Lennie’s head full of paint chips and—she’d had to smile to herself—Ikea and floor-sanders, yes. Vintage glass to catch the light. She might even finally find a home for that reindeer skin she’d felt compelled to buy in Sweden.
But right at this moment, standing there watching the quiet valley outside, a different project was occupying Lennie’s mind. One that had been growing there for a while, germinating unnoticed until, halfway down a well-earned glass of wine last night it had finally broken the surface.
Barry pocketed his tape. ‘I should be able to get some rough figures together for you next week,’ he said. ‘Give you something to think about. Do your sums.’
‘Thank you so much,’ Lennie said. If she really had the guts to go for what she was thinking about now, she was going to have to do a lot of sums. ‘I really appreciate you taking a look.’ ‘No worries at all.’ Barry tapped the window frame again. ‘She’s a sound old place.’ He cast a glance at Jeanette, who was on the sofa engrossed in her phone. ‘You could do a lot worse, I reckon.’
Lennie took a deep breath. ‘Barry, are you in a hurry to get home?’
He shrugged. ‘Not particularly. Why?’
‘Would you have time to come and look at something in Kimpton with me?’
‘I suppose I could.’ He checked his watch. ‘What is it you’ve got in mind?’
‘Come on. I’ll buy you a coffee.’
•
In The Hard Yard on Monday, Lennie studied Benji carefully across the table, wondering how he was going to react to what she had to tell him. He already had a slightly odd look on his face. ‘Thanks for meeting me,’ she began.
His usual grin returned. ‘Always a pleasure.’
They were sitting outside on the terrace, the midday sun eating away at the ice in the shadow of the hedge. As Fifi delivered the menus neither of them needed to look at, Benji tapped his against the edge of the table thoughtfully.
‘You said you had something you wanted to discuss?’
Lennie nodded. ‘An idea,’ she said.
He shot her a look. ‘Does it involve you staying in Kimpton?’
She tilted her head. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘Let me guess,’ Benji said wryly, ‘Jim’s not selling the practice to us anymore?’
‘No,’ Lennie said carefully. ‘That’s not it. I didn’t ask you here to talk about VETSouth buying the practice.’ She paused. ‘Not as such. There’s something else I want to do.’
He sat back in his chair. ‘I’m all ears.’
‘I want to set up a hospital.’
‘You want to what?’ He was looking at her as if she’d gone stark raving mad. ‘Here?’
‘Not a big one,’ Lennie said. ‘Nothing huge. But, I mean, we are central, right? W
ith some smart rostering, an intern programme, a little facility here could cover off your whole region. In-patient referrals, overnight monitoring, 24/7 emergency care, post-op rehab…’
Benji frowned. ‘Keep talking,’ he said.
‘We’ve got the paddock,’ she told him. ‘Room to put in equine facilities too.’
‘And you,’ he said. ‘You’d stay in Kimpton and run all this.’ ‘As a new entity,’ Lennie said. ‘In partnership with VETSouth.’ She watched Benji think about it.
‘We could fly other specialists in for clinics,’ she said. ‘Orthopaedics. Oncology…’
‘Fly them in?’ He gave her that odd look again.
Lennie smiled. ‘Well, we wouldn’t want to pay them to drive.’
‘What does Jim have to say about all this?’
‘I haven’t exactly talked to him yet. I wanted to talk to you first.’ She dropped Benji’s gaze. ‘And Jim’s had a few other things on his mind.’
‘So what is it you want me to do?’
‘Could you talk to the partners?’ Lennie raised her eyes to his face again. ‘Maybe set up a meeting?’
‘You’re serious about this,’ Benji said. ‘Long term.’
Lennie nodded.
‘What happened to moving back to Sydney?’ He studied her. ‘Or Chicago? I heard that was in the mix too.’
‘I thought again.’ She lifted her chin. ‘Lois and Jim won’t be around forever. I want to spend some quality time with them. And…’ She paused. ‘I like Kimpton. People look after each other here.’
Benji tapped his menu against the tabletop for a while longer. ‘So you and Mitch Stuart,’ he said. ‘That’s going to be a permanent thing?’
‘Maybe,’ Lennie said slowly.
‘Does that have something to do with this new plan?’
Lennie smiled. ‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe,’ he echoed. ‘You know, if we’re talking maybes…’ His eyes sparkled in true Benji Cooper style. ‘Maybe it should be you and me.’
He could still make her catch her breath—but this time for a different reason. ‘Benji,’ Lennie began.
‘We’ve always had something, haven’t we? You and I?’ He leaned forward. ‘Is it too late?’