The Farm at Peppertree Crossing

by Léonie Kelsall

  Luke chuckled, dropping to a kitchen stool and pulling his wife onto his lap. ‘How do you accidentally buy a bull?’

  ‘I went to the market to get a poddy and came away with a bobby. Similar letters. How’s a girl to know?’

  ‘See, it’s not just me.’ Taylor slapped her husband’s shoulder, then turned to Roni. ‘Luke gives me shit when I screw up. Like when I don’t know a reaper from a fertiliser spreader, or can’t tell the difference between his crops.’

  Almost giddy with the adrenaline surge that followed a panic attack, Roni didn’t feel such an outsider. ‘I bet at least you don’t get accused of manhandling his wild oats.’

  ‘I wish.’ Luke nuzzled Taylor’s neck. ‘If my wife would work a little less, maybe I’d get the chance to do some accusing.’

  Taylor wrestled from his grip. ‘Scram, you. Go heat up the barbecue, seeing as you’re clearly not into the game.’

  ‘I just found more interesting things to heat up,’ Luke grumbled. ‘See, Roni, this is what happens when you’re old and married. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  Taylor’s tea towel caught him a smart crack across his backside as he left the kitchen. ‘Sorry about him,’ she said, though she smiled fondly at his back. ‘He’s getting kind of antsy to have kids.’

  ‘You don’t have any?’

  ‘I don’t want to rush things.’

  ‘Didn’t you say you’ve been together ten years?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Two shallow lines furrowed between Taylor’s eyes. ‘Doesn’t feel that long, though. We’ve plenty of time. I hope.’ Her expression turned melancholy, but then she forced a smile. ‘Who knows how life will turn out? That’s why I say grab onto whatever’s offered, and enjoy it while you can. Taxes can be avoided if you’ve got a great accountant, but death sure as heck can’t. You want to take those bowls? The barbie’s out the back.’ She nodded toward the hallway. ‘Just follow Luke’s whistling. I swear, I’d be able to find him from a thousand miles away. Well, technically, I did.’

  What was the story Taylor hinted at with her half-mentioned tales, the reminiscences that drifted off with a wistful smile? How could Roni even ask about such a thing? Socialising was something she had never before felt the need or desire to participate in. It seemed awkward and unnatural, and she had no idea where the boundaries lay. Her own were the only ones she had ever been interested in.

  And she needed to focus on keeping them intact.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Armageddon came on Tuesday. At least, that’s what it looked like when she woke. The horizon to the north was a dull, surreal red, the air hung thick and ominous. By the time she’d fed the chickens, the thermometer near the back door read thirty-nine degrees. The atmosphere seemed muffled and soundless; a superheated vacuum filled with menacing portent.

  With it too hot to work outdoors, she cleaned the house and then changed into shorts and a T-shirt to head into town. She would spend some time with Tracey, having skipped going in yesterday. Without company the day had dragged long and oddly empty.

  By the time she reached her car in the shed opposite the chicken coop, the red pall in the distance had gusted in. Airborne dust and sand hid the sun and tainted her now-familiar world with the shades of hell.

  In town, she pulled up and ran to Tracey’s door, rapping with her knuckles as she let herself in, then used her backside to wedge the door shut against the hot wind.

  ‘Down here, love.’ Tracey’s call came from deeper in the house, not the bedroom, and Roni grinned. If Tracey was back in the kitchen it meant there was a chance of something delicious for lunch and, more importantly, her friend was feeling better.

  ‘So,’ Tracey chirped, a gauzy robe of multitudinous pastels swirling around her. ‘Guess who came to visit me yesterday?’

  ‘You want to clue me in?’

  Tracey slid a plate onto the table and the aroma of a toasted ham, cheese and tomato sandwich, rock-salt diamonds glittering in the golden-fried butter crust, wafted to Roni’s nose. Her mouth watered.

  ‘Dig in, love. From what I hear, you need feeding up. Sounds like you’ve been doing a lot of work out at Marian’s.’

  ‘Oh.’ Why did her heart suddenly beat erratic at the possibility Matt had been talking about her? Especially as they had been politely distant on the drive back from Taylor’s, and they’d not spoken since.

  Tracey passed her a cup of tea and lowered herself into a chair, picking around the edges of her own sandwich. ‘Matt tells me I have serious competition in the lamington stakes. Sounds like you should have put your own in the contest.’

  ‘Oh, he’s exaggerating.’ Roni spread her empty hands wide. ‘See, I was too embarrassed to bring one for you to try.’

  ‘Embarrassed, or did Matt clean you out?’ Tracey teased. ‘I imagine that man would need a lot to fill him up.’

  ‘He probably took them to feed his chickens. God knows, mine are stuffed fit for Christmas.’

  Tracey patted her hand. ‘Learn to take a compliment, love. He likes your cooking. That’s a good thing, right?’

  ‘I guess.’ It would have been a good thing when she believed he was assessing her. Now it was kind of … heart-warming?

  No! The tea shivered over the edge of her cup. Matt was her sharefarmer, nothing more. Neither of them wanted him to be anything more. Her presence often rendered him reticent, while his left her confused and challenged and … thrilled?

  Shit. No. Not thrilled.

  Since those three, she had never felt any interest toward a man, not even Greg, despite trying to persuade herself that their relationship was more than a need for the safety of familiarity.

  Yet the thought of Matt had her stomach doing weird things.

  Her belly, where another man’s baby resided. Why the hell was she letting her imagination run away with her? She licked her fingers, dabbing up the last salt crystals. ‘Where’s that Scrabble board? As you’re clearly back on form, I’m not giving any free passes today.’

  Playing against a real person was vastly different to playing on her phone, and concentrating on the game took her mind off Matt well into the afternoon. Finally winning the game by adding ‘y’ to ‘harp’ on a triple-word square, she swept the tiles together and stood. ‘Okay, having proved I’m not a pushover—’

  ‘I’d say Matt hopes differently.’

  ‘I don’t imagine he hopes one way or the other,’ she snapped. A wounded look flashed across Tracey’s face, and Roni closed her eyes for a moment and deliberately softened her tone. ‘You don’t understand, Tracey. There are … complications.’

  Tracey tossed the last ivory tile into the box. ‘Love, life is a complication. A glorious, messy and, if you’re lucky, long complication. One that is always resolved, and generally far too soon.’

  Roni chewed on the inside of her cheek, once again tempted to confide in Tracey. But if she shared one secret, would she be able to stop? She needed to hold tight to both her reserve and her independence. Only by remaining alone could she keep the secrets of both her past and her future. ‘Well, on that incredibly profound note, and having proved I’m a more-than-able Scrabble adversary, I shall take my leave. Undefeated.’

  ‘But I defeated you all those other times.’

  ‘Today marks a new dawn. We’re only counting from now.’ She leaned down to press a kiss to Tracey’s cheek, startling herself with the impulsive action. ‘I’m so glad you’re feeling better.’

  Tracey’s eyes filled, and she pressed her hand to her cheek as though she could hold the kiss in place. ‘And I’m so glad you’re feeling as though you fit in around here, love. Oh, that reminds me, I’m due to give you another of Marian’s letters. Come on, I’ll see you to the door. It’s on the hallstand.’

  Roni took the envelope, running her thumb over the familiar handwriting, anticipation warm inside her. ‘Tell me it doesn’t say I have to breed cocker spaniels, or open a boarding house.’

  ‘Marian didn’t like cocker spani
els,’ Tracey grinned. ‘Go on, off with you, love.’ She opened the front door, then staggered back as though she’d cracked the entrance to a furnace. The sky roiled with clouds of red dust, fine particles obscuring the picket fence at the end of the garden. ‘Oh! Maybe you’d better not go.’

  Roni threw up a hand to protect her face from the blasting sand as she stepped outside. ‘I have to. The animals are alone. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  She clutched the letter against her stomach and tucked her chin to her chest as the wind shrieked, throwing grit into her eyes. Her skin melted to her bones. Leaves skittered along the road, snagging on her legs. She dragged at the car door then dropped into her seat, cranking the air conditioner as soon as she’d turned the ignition.

  Though she had automatically buckled her belt, she had to unclip it to wriggle to the edge of the seat, so she could peer through the filthy windscreen. The wipers ground from side to side, barely shifting the sand. Dust coated the superheated dash. She coughed, checked the air vents were closed, and pulled slowly from the kerb.

  With little visibility, she inched through deserted streets. Gusts of scorching wind buffeted the car sideways and her fingers clawed on the melting steering wheel, her arms aching with the strain of holding the vehicle true. She squinted, trying to find the white centre line, away from the wild swaying of the power lines strung each side of the road.

  She reached the speed sign marking the edge of town, the car crawling up the hill between the wildly whipping trees. Her eyes burned as she peered into the murk.

  Her thighs sweated, her knee trembling as she stomped the brakes, then edged around a fallen tree.

  And another.

  She should turn back.

  Tracey’s place was closer. It would be safer.

  But she had to make sure Baby and Goat had found shelter.

  The change in vibration signalled she had left the bitumen and moved onto the dirt road. The temperature inside the car spiked. The air conditioner failed. Sweat poured down her back. The heat stole the oxygen. Her chest burned as she gasped for air, each searing breath raking through her dry throat.

  She cracked a window to equalise the pressure as the front swept across the land. It made no difference. Any second now, her eardrums would explode.

  With a boom like the world split in half, the invisible heavens cracked open. The dust on the windscreen became an instant avalanche of mud. The wipers lost traction, skimming the slime. The temperature plummeted and goosebumps peppered her arms but, her knuckles tiny white mountains, she didn’t dare release her grip on the wheel to turn the heater on.

  Pounded by the downpour, each bedraggled tree was unfamiliar. Every slight bend in the slippery road was new. The car lurched and splashed into previously unnoticed potholes. Slowing even more, she used one hand to swipe the steamed windscreen, then opened the window further, flinching as the rain stung her face.

  She couldn’t see half a metre beyond the bonnet. Couldn’t hear a thing above the rain pounding the windscreen so hard the glass should shatter. Her headlights reflected in a cascade of splintered crystal drops. As she lightened her tread on the accelerator the car slewed, grinding to a near halt each time she ran into the gravel mounded either side of the track.

  The tempest ended as instantaneously as it had begun, the dark clouds rolling back to reveal a rain-washed sky. Birds burst into song, as though a new day had dawned in the late afternoon. If they had managed to find somewhere to hide, surely Goat and Baby would also be all right?

  Roni heaved out a shuddering breath, trying to ease the tension that gripped her middle, and unlock her cramped fingers from the wheel. Framed by the pewter sky and the raggedy, wind-lashed branches of the peppertrees, the white-painted entry fence to Peppertree Crossing lay only a hundred metres ahead. She’d made it home.

  Home.

  She had never wanted to be anywhere more in her life. Tears trembled on her lashes. Scritches would be curled on his yellow cushion in the comforting safety of the overstuffed and oversized homestead. The ninth book she’d taken from Marian’s library waited on her bedside table. The loaf of bread she’d baked early, in case Matt showed up, sat beneath a towel on the kitchen counter.

  Goat and Baby would poke their noses out of their lean-to shelter in the orchard, Baby probably wondering at his first experience of rain. The poultry would crowd the door of the coop, looking for dinner and wanting to come out to scratch at the damp, soft earth.

  All of those things were now, in the most irrevocable and definitive way, home.

  She pulled the car onto the cattle grid, then slammed the brakes, gaping at the sight before her. Water thundered along the creek, every bit as spectacular as Marian had promised. It lapped at the bridge, tiny whitecaps breaking on the rocks that thrust free of the surface.

  ‘Wow.’ Phone in hand, she leaned from the window. The battery died after she’d snapped only a few photos, and she grunted, tossing it onto the passenger seat.

  Though the torrent rushed through the gully, the water lapping over the bridge wasn’t as deep as the puddles she’d driven through. She wound up the window, put the car into drive and eased forward, crawling onto the rocks.

  No problem. The tyres gripped, unaffected by the water flow. They passed the midpoint of the bridge.

  Rocks shifted under the left front tyre. The vehicle lurched.

  She gasped, instinctively hitting the brakes. No! She should keep moving. Get the hell off the damn bridge, before it washed away.

  The bridge she hadn’t fixed.

  She tentatively pressed the accelerator. The car inched forward.

  The back end slid, tyres spinning as they lost traction. The vehicle canted crazily to the left, throwing her sideways, the only view through the passenger window of dirty, swirling water.

  She slammed into reverse and gunned the engine.

  Nothing.

  Into drive again.

  Nothing. No, worse, something—the car tipped further to the left. Any second now it would roll, trapping her.

  Yanking her door handle, she scrambled from the vehicle, reflexively slamming the door, and stumbled across the remaining few metres of bridge. The cold water tried to pull her from the crossing but was shallower than she’d expected.

  She snatched at the trailing branches of the overhanging peppertree and hauled herself to safety, her heart pounding as she turned to look back at the car.

  She had overreacted. From here it didn’t seem too bad. Definitely leaning to the left, but the situation didn’t look nearly as precarious as it had felt. In fact, her panic seemed kind of stupid now. Should she go back and try to move the car? She nibbled on her lip. She was in no hurry to feel that rush of fear again. Better to leave the car until the floodwaters had died down. Then she could build the bridge wider, give the tyres something to grip.

  Like she should have done before, when Matt had warned her about the summer flash floods.

  She crossed her arms, shivering. It had started to drizzle again, and she faced a long walk home. Still, it was pretty, the rain lending a new aspect to scenery that had become familiar. The golden stalks of wheat drooped damp and forlorn, and she frowned. Taylor had said reaping was done while the crops were dry; would rain affect the harvest? Would that negatively impact Matt’s income? And hers. At least that would be something she could safely ask Matt about when she next saw him.

  The drizzle turned to sharp slivers and she picked up her pace, relieved when she rounded the sweeping bend, bringing the solid reassurance of the homestead into view. A hot shower was definitely in order, and her stomach insisted lunch had been a long time ago. With her phone in the car—and dead, anyway—and the sun again hidden by lowering clouds, it was impossible to guess the time, but it felt as though night encroached.

  As the rain started to bucket down she cut across a paddock and through the lower fence of the home yard, stopping to feed the chickens. Then she dashed to the orchard. Goat snickered at her and Baby l
owed, but neither were coming out from the shelter they stood safely inside, munching on baled hay.

  At the back door, she stripped her sodden clothes, dropping them in the sunroom as she let herself into the womb-like security of the house.

  Scritches yowled, his fur plastering to her wet legs.

  ‘It’s pretty horrible out, Scritch. Are you sure you want to go?’ He was sure, standing on his hind legs to nudge at her hand for only a second before dashing out the door. ‘Okay, well don’t be long. It’s definitely getting dark.’

  No point locking the door, he’d want back in soon enough.

  She squelched toward the bathroom, flicking the light switch. Frowning, she stepped back into the hall and tried another switch. No power. That meant a quick shower, because showering in the dark was definitely an invitation to axe murderers, no matter how nice your location.

  The hot water peppered her chilled skin with tiny needles, the pain giving way to pleasure as she closed her eyes and luxuriated in the warmth.

  Eventually, she glanced at the high window. Dark, both inside and out. She groped for a towel and wrapped the fabric tightly around her chest. Scritches needed to come in.

  Eyes closed, she trailed her fingertips along the cool abrasiveness of the long passageway wall, her feet cushioned by the Persian runner. She counted the doorways, stopping in just the right spot to open the door into the sunroom without smacking into it. A bedraggled Scritches meowed plaintively at the external door.

  ‘You nut. It’s not like there aren’t about a thousand places under cover where you could have waited.’ She cuddled the cat, who rubbed his wet, tousled head under her chin. ‘C’mon, you can come help me find my clothes.’

  She had no idea where to look for candles or a torch, but she knew the kitchen well and, thanks to Rafe, could make sandwiches with her eyes shut. For Roo’s sake, she would dig through the fridge to find some salad.

  A long-sleeved jersey halfway over her head, she jumped as a fusillade of banging thundered up the hall.

  She’d not heard a vehicle, but fists urgently pounded on wood as she tiptoed along the hall, keeping close to one wall. Scritches’ nails clicked as he ran ahead of her, silhouetted by the blue, moonlit sunroom. He rubbed himself against the back door. He only did that for one person.