Home On the Station/Noah & Kate/Daniel & Lily/Luke & Erin

by Barbara Hannay

  She took a deep breath and turned to Luke again, and she saw for the first time how tired and strained he looked. ‘I guess you must have had a terrible shock too,’ she admitted.

  He nodded slowly and swallowed. Without looking at her, he said, ‘The boy means the world to me, Erin.’

  Then he flicked a wary gaze her way and she caught a glimpse of deep emotion in his eyes—a mixture of sorrow and love and longing—and her heart seemed to swell so hugely in her chest she couldn’t speak.

  She wanted to tell Luke that she understood his pain. She cared. She almost wanted to tell him how much she’d missed him, how many times in the past five years she’d regretted leaving him.

  But how foolish was that? She had no idea if he’d welcome such news.

  They stood uncomfortably, not looking at each other and not talking.

  Finally Luke said, ‘Would you like to see Joey now?’

  ‘Yes—yes, please.’

  ‘He’s probably still asleep.’

  ‘That’s okay.’

  They walked together down the corridor till Luke stopped outside a door that was slightly ajar. Erin glimpsed a night-light on the wall and the corner of a hospital bed, neat with stiff white sheets, perfectly tucked. Even though she knew Joey was okay, she felt a pang of anxiety. Her poor baby was all alone in a strange big hospital.

  As if he sensed how she felt, Luke sent her a faint smile and a reassuring wink that did ridiculous things to her heart, and then he pushed the door open.

  Joey looked so small in the middle of the white bed and there was an ugly graze and a bump on his forehead. Erin tiptoed forward and his eyes opened slowly and he smiled just a little groggily.

  ‘Mommy,’ he said softly. His eyes seemed to study her and then he frowned. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I came straight from Sydney when I heard about your fall,’ she said, leaning over to kiss his cheek. ‘How are you, baby? Do I get a hug?’

  ‘Sure.’ Sleepily, he lifted his arms to her. ‘You smell nice,’ he said as she hugged him. ‘Doesn’t Mommy smell nice, Dad?’

  Behind her Luke cleared his throat. ‘Very,’ he murmured so quietly Erin almost missed it.

  Joey’s eyes became worried. ‘I’m sorry, Mommy. I forgot my skid lid.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘His skull cap,’ said Luke.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Tenderly, Erin touched the side of Joey’s head near the bump. ‘You’ve learned the hard way why those helmets are important, haven’t you?’

  Joey nodded and then winced as if the movement hurt his head.

  ‘I’ve just popped in to say goodnight,’ Erin told him. ‘You look as if you need a nice long sleep.’

  ‘Are you going to stay here with me?’

  Before Erin could respond, Luke moved closer to the bed. ‘We’ll wait with you now until you go to sleep and then we’ll see you again first thing in the morning.’ He spoke gently, but with an unmistakable air of fatherly authority that took Erin by surprise.

  The three of them chatted a little about the hospital and whether Joey’s head hurt, whether the nurses were nice and what he’d had for dinner. Fifteen minutes later, Joey was asleep again.

  Outside his room, Erin turned to Luke. ‘I’d like to speak to a nurse. I thought Joey seemed too lethargic, didn’t you?’

  ‘I spoke to the sister in charge earlier and she said concussion often makes the patient sleepy, even a little confused. I wouldn’t worry, Erin. He’s in expert hands and he should be much better tomorrow. Come on, let’s go. Have you had dinner?’

  Erin dismissed dinner with a wave of her hand. ‘Before we head off, we should talk about what’s going to happen tomorrow, when Joey gets out of hospital.’

  Luke frowned. ‘I don’t catch your drift.’

  ‘Is there somewhere nearby where I can take him?’

  ‘I’ll take him home.’

  ‘No. Joey can’t go back to Warrapinya, Luke.’

  ‘Why the hell not?’

  ‘Ssh.’ She cast a hasty glance back through the doorway to Joey’s darkened room and lowered her voice to just above a whisper. ‘He won’t be well enough to go back out there.’

  ‘He’s only had a bump on the head. He’s going to be fine in a day or two.’

  ‘But once he gets back there, he’ll be tearing around with those wild little boys again and he’ll want to go horse-riding.’

  ‘I’ll make sure he takes it easy till he’s completely recovered.’

  Erin felt her jaw clench. Anger stirred. Luke didn’t understand how unprepared Joey was for the Outback. And he couldn’t imagine how hard it was for her to let her little boy go off into the wilderness again. It had been hard enough the first time, but now, after a potentially fatal accident— ‘You don’t understand what he means to me,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe you don’t understand what he means to me.’

  Blue eyes and grey glared at each other.

  Then Erin dropped her gaze and sighed. Actually, she did understand how Luke felt. But he was asking too much of her.

  ‘I’m his mother,’ she said. ‘Joey will need me.’

  He would need her now the way he’d needed her so many times—when he had the chicken pox, or when he woke in the night from a bad dream, or when he was scared that aliens might abduct him.

  Luke’s brows drew low over narrowed eyes. ‘You can’t cut off my time with Joey like that. I won’t stand for it. The deal was two months.’

  ‘The deal was you’d take good care of him.’

  ‘That’s below the belt, Erin, and you know it.’

  She closed her eyes to avoid the menace in Luke’s. Well, yes, perhaps she had overreacted. Again.

  And she also knew that Joey adored Luke. If she tried to stop him from going back with his father, how would the boy react?

  Luke began to march with angry strides down the corridor to the lift and Erin hurried to keep up. Was she being churlish because deep down she was afraid? Was she jealous because she knew that Luke could give Joey the comfort and love that had been her exclusive role till now?

  It wasn’t pleasant to realise that she was handling this badly. She’d been hoping she would learn something from these two months of separation, that she would grow stronger emotionally, even that she would emerge from this ordeal a better person.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, as they came to a halt in front of the elevator. ‘You’re right, Luke,’ she added bravely. ‘I’m probably overreacting. I’ll have to trust you to take good care of Joey. If the doctor gives him the all-clear he should go back with you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said gruffly. ‘That means a lot.’

  On the ground floor they crossed the hospital foyer and approached a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass doors. Beyond the glass the car park loomed and for the first time since she’d grabbed a taxi in Sydney and dashed to Mascot airport, Erin thought about what would happen next. She’d flown north in a blind panic with no more than overnight clothes and a toothbrush, and now it was time to get practical.

  ‘This is the way to the cab rank,’ Luke said, indicating a door to their left.

  ‘Have you organised your accommodation?’

  ‘Sure.’ He smiled. ‘Last year I bought an apartment here in Townsville.’

  ‘You bought a condo, here on the coast?’

  ‘That’s right. It’s handy for trips into the city.’

  ‘I’ll bet it is.’ It was hard to hide her shock. Once again Erin was conscious of how much more comfortable Luke’s life was now.

  There’d been no plane for emergencies and no regular trips to town when they had been married. She’d spent her days stuck out in the middle of the wilderness, lonely and scared, while Luke had been off mustering cattle or mending fences or doing a thousand other things that had kept him away from the homestead.

  ‘I have a spare bed,’ Luke said. ‘You’re welcome to it.’

  ‘I—I don’t think that’s wise,’ she stammered, sur
prised that he would offer her hospitality.

  Luke stopped walking and there was a hint of mild amusement lurking in his eyes, almost as if he were challenging her. ‘Why the hell isn’t it wise?’

  ‘Because…of our situation.’

  His hands settled on his hips and his mouth curled into a faintly contemptuous sneer. ‘You’re scared of me.’

  Yes, she was scared—scared of the effect he had on her—of the way her body had gone into meltdown when he’d held her. Scared of his body’s answering response.

  She remembered Angie’s question about sparks. Oh, yes, there were sparks all right. Electrifying, dangerous sparks.

  But what she had to remember was that this trip to Australia wasn’t about her falling in lust again with Luke. Giving in to physical hunger would be the worst kind of mistake. It couldn’t lead to anything but more confusion and unhappiness for everyone concerned, especially for Joey.

  ‘Of course I’m not scared of you,’ she said carefully. ‘It’s just that I—I don’t want to impose on you. A bed for the night is a very kind offer, but there’s no need. I can find a room somewhere.’

  ‘It would be less of an imposition if you could get rid of that bee in your bonnet and be sensible, Erin. Why not stay at my place? The spare room’s there to be used. Have you realised how late it is? Do you really want the hassle of trying to track down a motel room at this time of night?’

  He was right, of course, but his taunting reasonableness annoyed her. Why wasn’t he as uptight as she was about the two of them spending a night together in his apartment, under his roof, behind a locked door and within the privacy of his four walls?

  But, given his coolness, her nervous objections appeared childish. Her hands fluttered away from her sides, palms up, signalling her surrender. ‘Okay, thank you, Luke. A bed at your place would be very…convenient.’

  A taxi took them across Ross River and into the city and they sat carefully apart on the back seat. Erin couldn’t believe how nervous she felt. Her skin seemed to hum all over with heightened awareness of Luke’s proximity.

  What was the matter with her? He was her ex, the one man in the world she’d tried to live with and couldn’t. And yet here she was with the kind of tummy-twisting anticipation she hadn’t felt since her high school prom night.

  She looked out at the street lights and the traffic and the lights shining from suburban houses—high set timber homes mostly, surrounded by tree-filled gardens—and she found herself remembering a time when they were married when Luke had promised to bring her here to Townsville.

  ‘I want to take you and the little fellow and we’ll have a holiday in Townsville,’ he’d said. ‘You’ll love it. We can rent a cottage on Magnetic Island or an apartment in the city and we’ll hire a babysitter and go out. There’s a Shakespeare play on.’

  She’d been incredibly excited. The promise of that little trip to town had kept her buoyed for days, but then at the last minute they couldn’t go. There’d been a problem on a neighbouring property and Luke had claimed that he couldn’t abandon these people. They were good neighbours and the Manning family owed them a big favour.

  Erin had been devastated. Surely Luke owed her a favour too?

  And then the wet season had arrived early and they had been cut off from the coast by flooded creeks. Without a plane they’d been stranded.

  They hadn’t had their holiday. By the time the wet season had been over it had been time to check fences and to shift the cattle again.

  The taxi pulled up at a tall apartment block right in the heart of the city. Erin noticed a trendy-looking sushi bar on the ground floor and a hairdresser and a beauty spa right across the street. Luke’s apartment was on the top floor and it was spacious and very modern and new, with stunning views across the southern suburban lights to the silky waters of the bay.

  She looked around her in amazement. She was pleased for Luke that he was enjoying such luxuries, but she couldn’t help feeling a little angry too. She felt as if she’d been cheated somehow.

  So much had happened in the past five years. She’d struggled alone to make a success of her business and to care for Joey, while Luke had gone from strength to strength. He’d acquired a manager who’d brought his young family to live at Warrapinya, and he had an aeroplane and this apartment.

  The spare room Luke showed her to was very trendy and comfortable and, she was relieved to see, separated from the master bedroom by a spacious open-plan living area.

  ‘I’m going to order some take-away,’ Luke said. ‘Do you still like Thai? They have a great Thai restaurant just down the street.’

  ‘Thai sounds great.’

  He looked down at his clothes. He’d probably dropped everything when Joey’s accident occurred and he was still wearing his working gear—dusty jeans and riding boots and a rough denim work-shirt beneath a faded and holey navy cotton sweater.

  By contrast, Erin was dressed for dinner in a cream silk shirt and caramel silk trousers.

  ‘I’m going to get out of these and take a shower,’ Luke said. ‘If you want one, your bathroom’s that way. You should find a bathrobe in there.’ Eyeing her tiny overnight bag, he flashed a slightly self-conscious boyish grin. ‘I can’t offer you much in the way of clothes, except the bathrobe or one of my shirts.’

  ‘The robe will be fine,’ she said tightly, but she wasn’t going to get changed into it yet. She would keep all her clothes on, thank you.

  While Luke showered she went through to the bathroom and washed her face, cleaned her teeth and tidied her hair. There was a big mirror above the vanity table and she studied her reflection. Her clothes had seemed so right for a dinner party at Candia’s home in Potts Point, Sydney, but now she was with Luke they felt totally wrong. It was as if she was trying too hard.

  She looked at the strands of freshwater pearls on fine gold chains about her neck. Her earrings were little balls she’d made from twisted gold wire and seed pearls. She loved her jewellery, but now it seemed unnecessary and she slipped off the chains and removed the baubles from her ears.

  Kicking off her Prada pumps, she wandered back into the living room, thought about coffee and continued on to the kitchen.

  ‘That coffee smells great,’ Luke said when he emerged, freshly showered and changed into clean jeans and a spotless white T-shirt that hugged his physique with breathtaking snugness. ‘I’m glad you’ve made yourself at home.’

  His eyes held hers for a moment longer than was necessary. ‘You’ve taken off those dangly things.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It’s a pity. I liked them.’

  Heat flared in her cheeks and she quickly switched her attention to the coffee-maker. It was time to put an end to this nonsense, to dampen the undeniable sizzle.

  ‘Would you like some of this coffee?’ she asked.

  ‘I think I’ll grab a beer.’ He opened the fridge and freed a can from a six-pack. ‘Make yourself at home.’ He cocked his head towards the living room. ‘Dinner should be here in about fifteen minutes.’

  The sofas in the living room were deep and comfortable, and Erin curled into one corner and tucked her legs beneath her, determined to be casual and relaxed.

  ‘Don’t look so worried, Erin.’

  So much for looking casual and relaxed. She smiled ruefully. ‘You have to admit it’s kind of weird, Luke, being together like this after such a long time.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He took a swig of beer, lowered it and stared at the floor for so long he had time to count all the stripes on the black and sienna rug.

  Erin looked at her hands folded neatly in her lap. Each nail was perfectly shaped and immaculately painted. She found herself thinking of the unpainted, no-nonsense hands of the women in the Outback—hands that could handle heavy gear shifts as they steered a truck across a dry creek gully—hands that baked bread, delivered breech calves and helped their husbands to build stockyards.

  Luke’s voice broke into her thoughts. ‘I guess this
is a chance for us to talk.’

  She reached for her mug and took a deep sip of coffee. ‘Well, yes, I guess it is. Why don’t you tell me more about how you and Joey are getting along?’

  ‘We’re hitting it off just fine. He’s a terrific little bloke. I must admit I didn’t expect to get on so well so quickly.’

  ‘I told you in Sydney, you’re his hero.’

  ‘Yes.’ He sent her a perplexed smile and scratched his head. ‘I just don’t understand how it happened. How can I be the kid’s hero when I haven’t been around? He couldn’t have known the first thing about me.’

  ‘That’s the point, Luke,’ Erin said gently. ‘I’m afraid an absent father leaves rather a big hole in a little boy’s life and he fills it the best way he can.’

  Luke’s face darkened as he shifted uncomfortably. His eyes flashed with concern.

  Erin took a deep breath. She could never think about Luke and Joey together without also feeling guilty for separating them. But the fault hadn’t all been hers. Luke had remained obstinately remote and silent. He hadn’t tried to see Joey.

  Perhaps it was time to come clean, to explain to Luke exactly why she’d brought his son to Australia.

  ‘Joey really needed to meet you, Luke. He was a boy on the edge.’

  ‘Edge of what?’

  ‘Disaster.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘YOU’VE GOT TO be joking,’ Luke cried. ‘How could a happy little bloke like Joey be heading for disaster?’

  Erin bristled. ‘Why do you think I suddenly wrote to you and asked if he could meet you?’

  ‘I—I just thought—’ Luke broke off and he felt suddenly lost as he stared at her. Eventually he forced a weak smile. ‘I suppose I thought you’d suddenly realised how desperate I was to meet my son.’

  Now, he realised, he’d given Erin the perfect opportunity to demand why he hadn’t done something about that. Why, after their divorce, had he refused any further contact with her? Why had he made no attempt to contact Joey?

  But perhaps she was wise enough to know that these questions would only lead to more tension. They would never be able to talk this through if they got too tense.