by Holly Ford
‘It’s not that.’
So it was something. Again, Tess tried to read him. He’d taken her announcement quietly, and the others had followed his lead, even Harry silenced by Nate’s refusal to ask what came next. Over Stan’s sausage casserole the five of them had discussed the muster, the horses, the ford, the shift in the river’s main channel above the gorge that meant they’d have to cross the mob at a higher point. Anything but their own future when they came down.
‘What is it, then?’ she asked him.
‘Tess, is this job something you actually want? Do you really want to stay here and manage Broken Creek, or are you taking it because …?’ He broke off, his shoulders hunching.
‘Because of you?’ Tess said gently. ‘Yes.’ She paused. ‘But if I hadn’t taken it, that would have been because of you too. You’re the only reason I could think of not to ask for this job. I like it here. I want to stay. If I’d never met you, if you weren’t here, I’d still …’ She meant to tell him she would have fallen for the place anyway, but the truth of the matter was that she couldn’t separate Nate from Broken Creek any better than he could.
‘But that’s not what you do. You don’t stay. You don’t take long-term contracts.’
‘What, you thought I was only going to be around for so many nights?’
‘Come on,’ Nate said tersely. ‘We’re past that now.’
‘I decided,’ she told him, ‘it was time for a change. Time I made a real commitment. Saw something all the way through.’
‘Since when?’
‘It’s hard to say.’ Knowing he couldn’t see it, Tess smiled. ‘It’s been coming on for a while now.’
They stood without speaking, the wind in the trees, the frogs in the grass making holes in the silence. In the distance, the dogs started up, welcoming Mitch and Harry home.
‘Maybe,’ Nate said, ‘this isn’t the right place to commit to.’
Her newfound faith in him lurched. ‘What does that mean?’
‘That boss of yours would have given you any farm you wanted. We both know that.’
Tess didn’t argue. Mark had said as much himself. The last seven years had earned her that right. ‘You have a problem with me choosing this one?’
‘I know,’ he said, ‘I gave you a pretty hard time for not having your heart in this place, but you were right. You were doing your job.’
She waited.
‘I feel like I’ve dragged you into a fight that isn’t yours,’ Nate said, ‘and maybe I’ve made you pick the wrong side.’
She opened her mouth, but he wasn’t finished.
‘I got myself into this mess, and now you’re taking risks to get me out, and Tess, I know you’re trying to fix things, but maybe they can’t be fixed. Maybe we should both walk away.’
‘You can walk away if you want. The redundancy package is still on the table. You can take the cheque and go.’ She raised her shoulders against the cooling night breeze. ‘I’m going to stick around and see if I can get this place back in the black.’ Tess paused. ‘I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been hoping you’d help me. But I’ll do it alone if you won’t.’
‘Bob and I couldn’t,’ Nate said. ‘What makes you think that you can?’
‘Carnarvon’s money,’ she said simply. ‘You didn’t have that.’
In the silence that followed, Tess shivered. ‘Nate?’ He turned to her. ‘The station’s not sinking. Stop trying to make me get out.’
He put his hands on her hips.
‘You’re right about a couple of things, though.’ She stroked his forearms. ‘I can’t fix everything. And I do have a job to do.’
Nate sighed. ‘You still want Harry to leave.’
‘It’s not about what I want,’ Tess said. She took a deep breath. ‘And it isn’t only Harry.’
He let go, her hands brushing over his as he turned away.
‘We can’t carry two full-time stockmen through the winter,’ she told him. ‘That hasn’t changed.’
Nate rubbed the back of his neck.
‘There’d be the opportunity,’ Tess said, ‘to come back in the spring.’
‘An opportunity,’ he said.
‘That’s one option.’
‘What’s the other?’
She took another breath. ‘I could guarantee sixty hours between you and Mitch. One or both of you drops his hours through the winter, picks them up when we get busy again.’
Nate swung around. ‘You’re saying you want us to go part-time?’
‘I’d rather just one of you did,’ Tess admitted. ‘But I’ll leave how you split it up to the two of you. The thing is …’ She looked at him. ‘Since you and I are – well, you know – I don’t think it would be right for me to choose.’
‘So, actually,’ he said slowly, amusement growing in his voice, ‘you’re not giving me my job back at all.’
‘Not quite,’ she smiled. ‘But I am offering you a place to stay. Both of you. A place to live, if you want it.’
‘We keep the accommodation?’
‘It’s better for a house to have someone in it,’ Tess agreed, ‘especially over winter. I wouldn’t want the rats to take over.’
‘Well, obviously.’ She could make out the smile on his face now. ‘That’s just good management.’
‘It’ll keep insurance costs down.’
‘And Mitch and I,’ he said, ‘get to decide how many hours we work?’
‘I thought one of you,’ she felt the need to suggest, ‘might be able to find something else to do with his spare time.’
‘Like flying, you mean.’
‘It doesn’t seem like there’s any shortage of work for pilots out here.’ Tess hugged her ribs. ‘Look, I know it’s not perfect. I don’t have a magic wand. But it’s better than you all getting fired—’
‘Made redundant,’ Nate said drily.
‘And unless you have any better ideas …’
‘Are you actually asking me if I have a better idea?’
‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘Do you?’
‘No.’
‘So …’
‘Just remind me,’ he said, ‘what is it that you and I are doing again?’
‘You want to hear me say it?’
His hands were back on her hips. ‘I do.’
‘You and I’ – Tess kissed him slowly – ‘are in a relationship.’
‘The R word. You know that one too.’ Nate’s fingers spread in her hair. ‘It wasn’t what I was going for, but I’ll take it.’
She drew out of his kiss as the door behind them opened.
‘Night all,’ Stan said. Peg tottered out from under the bench to join him. ‘I’m off home now.’ He made his surefooted way past them into the dark. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
Tess shivered again.
‘Are you cold?’ Nate pulled her closer.
‘Yes,’ she laughed, ‘I am cold. So what? Do you have a plan to fix that?’ She put her arms back around his neck.
In the kitchen, Nate kicked the door shut behind them and pressed her to it, opening her shirt, her thighs, the skin of his open palm rough against her breast as he lifted it out of her bra. As Tess slid the shirt from his shoulders, he shrugged it off. She dug her fingers into the ripples of his back, skin on skin, her own heating as his hands moved over her body, playing it like a string.
By the time he laid her down on the table she could hardly breathe, her body slippery with want, need hard in her throat. ‘Careful,’ she managed. ‘Don’t hurt your arm.’
‘The last three months have been painful.’ Nate unbuttoned his jeans. ‘This …’ Oh, god.
‘… feels good.’
In the hall, the clock struck nine as Tess’s back met the wall beside it.
On the floor of her room, in the moonlight streaming through the sash, he turned her to face him, the sheen on their bodies cooling. He kissed her damp collarbone. ‘That seems to have worked.’
She pressed her lips to his
chest. ‘I just thought you were going to lend me your jacket.’
‘I was never wearing one.’ Getting up, he reached down his hand. ‘Let’s go to bed.’
Later, rearranging the tangle of flowered sheets, Tess leaned back against his raised thigh. It was still bright enough to see the shape of Nate’s shoulders against the pillow, the dressing glinting on his arm, the other moving slowly as his fingertips stroked the hollow of her throat.
‘You’re smiling,’ he said.
Damn right she was. She might never stop. ‘You’re in my bed.’
‘You think it’s weird for you?’ He traced the curve of her breast. ‘I haven’t spent the night in here since I was a little kid. This was my parents’ room.’
Turning her cheek, she touched her lips to his leg. ‘You never say things like that.’
‘They don’t help anybody.’
‘You think them, though.’
Nate was silent.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘For what?’
‘This is your house. Your home. You should be the one living in it, not me.’
‘You’re not the reason I don’t.’
She stroked his knee. ‘I never forgave the people who took over our farm when Dad lost it. I knew it wasn’t their fault, but I hated them anyway.’
Nate’s hand stopped moving. ‘How old were you?’
‘Thirteen.’
He tapped a thoughtful finger between her breasts.
‘Come on,’ Tess said, ‘you’ve got to hate me a little.’
Running his hand along the length of her leg, he kissed her knee. ‘I don’t seem to be doing a very good job.’
She shifted against him, freeing her hair.
‘I lost the right to live in this house,’ Nate said, ‘all by myself. There’s nobody else I can blame.’
There wasn’t? ‘You weren’t the one running the show,’ she pointed out cautiously.
‘No.’ He spread her hair over her breast. ‘No, I wasn’t. I was too busy doing the things I enjoyed.’ Picking up a strand, he wound it around his finger. ‘I didn’t like the office work any more than Bob did. I knew he was bad at it, but I left him to it anyway.’
‘You think you could have made a difference?’
‘I think I should have tried. Maybe, if I’d been paying more attention – if I’d stepped in earlier, before the fire – I might still own this place.’
‘I’ve been over the books,’ Tess said gently. ‘From what I’ve seen, unless you’ve got a couple of million bucks in your savings account, there wasn’t much you could have done.’ She paused. ‘Apart from trucking in a few thousand black-and-whites, of course.’
Looping her hair around his wrist, he pulled it softly. ‘You know, I’ve still got Macka’s card.’
She stroked his stomach, feeling his muscles contract at her touch. She’d never found the heart to tell him there might be a time limit on any good that card could do him. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘The cows are going to stay brown.’ On her watch, anyway.
‘Tess.’ His fingertip circled her thigh. ‘There’s something I need to tell you.’
His tone made her own stomach clench.
‘Before you came here,’ Nate said, ‘before we met you, Mitch and I had a plan.’
‘A plan,’ she repeated, relaxing again.
‘We thought if we could just wait it out, Carnarvon would fail here too. When they saw they couldn’t make money, they’d put the place back on the market, and we’d get another chance. Maybe this time the bidding wouldn’t go so high.’
‘You bid?’ Tess sat forward, disentangling herself. ‘You and Mitch tried to buy Broken Creek?’
‘We didn’t get very far,’ he admitted, ‘but yeah.’
She drew up her knees. ‘Are you saying you’ve been trying to make me fail?’
‘No,’ Nate said quickly. ‘No, we never did that. I wouldn’t, to anybody.’
Tess nodded. She’d seen what he and Mitch did. It had never looked half-hearted.
‘We didn’t think we’d need to,’ he said. ‘We worked our arses off for Bob and it didn’t do him any good.’
‘And what you told C.J. Mackersey?’ she prompted.
‘Was true. I meant every word I said. To him, and to you.’ Sitting up further, he held her ankles between his hands. ‘I know it’s my own fault I let this place go,’ he said, ‘but that doesn’t mean I don’t want it back. I do.’ Nate’s grip tightened a little. ‘I want it back.’
Jesus. Of course, of course he did, but … She put her hands over his.
‘I don’t think I can stop wanting that,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want you to fail. And I’m starting to think that you won’t. You’re too good. And I don’t know what the hell to do.’
She shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t either.’ Shit. Maybe she should have let Rick Kerrow take the bloody job. There was a man anyone could watch fail. But even if he did, if there was that small chance, none of them would be around to see it. ‘I know that I have to do my job.’ Carnarvon trusted her. Mark trusted her. He’d never let her down, and she owed him the same. Her loyalty, her best. The company too.
Nate’s hands dropped to her feet. ‘I would never ask you not to.’
‘And I know,’ Tess said, ‘that this station has no business being owned by anyone except you.’
He was quiet, his thumb moving over her instep so absently she got the feeling he’d forgotten it was there. ‘But?’ he said, at last.
‘There isn’t a but. Broken Creek should belong to you.’
‘If it was yours,’ Nate said, after another long pause, ‘would you trust me not to fuck it up?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘right at this moment it is. And I do. There’s no one I’d rather have out there than you.’ She touched his chest.
‘Tess, what happened when you lost your farm?’
She surprised herself with a sudden, uncomfortably vivid memory of leading her pony up the ramp and into a float for the last time. Tess shut it down quickly. Nate had lost so much more than that by the time he was the same age. ‘My dad was an old-fashioned farmer,’ she said, shrugging her shoulders against his thigh. ‘Times changed, he didn’t, he got left behind. The usual story.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘that’s not what I’m asking. I want to know what happened to you.’
‘People were very kind.’ Tess sighed. ‘Mum and Dad had a lot of friends. One of them gave Dad a job on his farm. A house. It wasn’t that bad.’
‘But it wasn’t the same.’
‘No. It wasn’t the same.’ She fell silent.
‘Then what?’ Nate said quietly.
‘Dad couldn’t hack working on somebody else’s property. Not being invested. Not being in charge.’ Tess smiled briefly. ‘He got himself a mining job in WA. Drive in, drive out, fourteen days on at a time. After a while, he just stopped coming home. Mum met another guy. She and I moved into his place for a bit, but it didn’t work out.’ She paused. It was kind of crazy, but in her mind that had never been the worst part.
‘What about the farm?’ Nate said. ‘Did you ever get to go back?’
‘They flooded it.’ Tess rested her cheek against his knee. ‘Most of the valley’s under an irrigation pond now. The hills are all planted in vines.’
‘Bastards.’ Nate stroked her hair.
‘There’s a tasting shed,’ Tess sighed. ‘A lot of people think it’s very pretty.’
Twenty
‘Cup of tea, love?’
Looking at the tabletop below Stan’s teapot, Tess blushed. Nate had left everything but her mind hours ago, before the increasingly late autumn sun was up.
‘Thanks, Stan.’ She pulled out a chair, surreptitiously checking the floor for her underwear. She hoped to god she found it before he did.
‘Lovely morning,’ he observed.
‘Yes.’ Tess peered under the table. ‘It is.’
‘Have you lost something, love?’
Damn. ‘An earring,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ve dropped one somewhere.’
‘An earring,’ Stan said. ‘Funny. I’ve never thought of you wearing those.’
She massaged her naked earlobes.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ll let you know if I come across it. It’s dusting day today.’
Tess squeezed her eyes shut briefly. Stan put a cup down in front of her. ‘Let’s hope this weather holds for the muster, eh?’
‘Yeah.’ She poured the tea. ‘Actually, speaking of that, there’s something I was hoping you might be able to help me out with when we get back.’
‘I will if I can.’
‘I’m worried about what’s going to happen to the hut,’ she said. ‘You know, when you retire. I don’t like the thought of it sitting empty. It’ll go downhill pretty fast. I was wondering if there was any chance you might stay on here when you finish work and look after it for me.’
He stopped wiping the bench. ‘Stay on here,’ he repeated slowly. ‘You want me to stay?’
‘I can’t pay you,’ Tess said. ‘It’d be more of a … a voluntary caretaker role.’
Stan remained wordless. In the background, the old fridge began its now familiar rumble.
‘A voluntary caretaker.’ He nodded, appearing to give the title some thought. ‘I reckon I might walk towards that.’
‘You’d need to use the kitchen, of course. You could come and go here whenever you wanted, just like now.’
Stan made a noise she didn’t quite catch.
‘Is that a yes?’ She couldn’t see his face. He’d turned his back to her, his hands spread on the bench, running over the faded countertop the way you’d check a horse.
‘Yeah,’ he said, more loudly. Hearing the tremor in his voice, Tess found herself wondering the unthinkable. Could Stan cry? ‘I can do that.’
‘Well,’ she smiled, ‘that’s a relief. That hut’s been preying on my mind.’
Clearing his throat noisily, Stan straightened a line of jars.
‘If you ever get bored with retirement,’ Tess said, ‘I could always do with a hand in the house, and around the garden. Casual hours. A couple of days a week, maybe. And we’ll need a packie when we muster, obviously. Someone to help out when we get busy.’ She paused. ‘I know you don’t need to work, and you’ll have your redundancy payment and all, but if you’re up for it, between one thing and another, I could probably keep your hands pretty full.’