The Vet from Snowy River

by Stella Quinn

  ‘Hannah? Why, what’s up? She was fine this morning.’

  ‘Been out since lunch at a foaling down near Dalgety. Foal hadn’t developed properly and she had to send it over the rainbow bridge. She’s pretending she’s totally fine, but she was out in the back office when she got home, filing.’

  ‘Hannah Cody, my younger and stroppier sister, was filing?’

  ‘Uh-huh. You can see why I’m worried.’

  ‘Might be time to crack the secret stash of chocolate biscuits, Sandy. Just let me know where you keep them and I’ll take one in to Han.’

  ‘Nice try. The location of the secret snacks is a mystery that I will take with me to the grave.’

  He sighed. ‘It was worth a shot.’

  ‘Besides, she’s gone. Walking her sad off down by the lake would be my guess.’

  ‘It’s never easy losing a patient.’

  ‘Mmm. Listen, Josh, I have to run. The kids have soccer practice and they’ll give me grief if they’re late.’

  ‘Sure, no problem. See you tomorrow.’

  Quiet settled over the clinic as Sandy locked the front door behind her. The pets tucked up in the sleepover room were behaving for once, Poppy was four hundred kilometres away and Hannah was out finding some peace by the waters of Lake Bogong.

  Shoot. This alone thing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

  Shrugging, he ripped open the envelope, and studied the contents within.

  Applicants: Joshua Preston Cody and Hannah Celine Cody

  Land to Be Developed: Lot 36 DP 129334 – 36 Salt Creek Flats Road, Hanrahan.

  Proposed Development: Removal of 1970s window bay and store front and reconstruction.

  Determination made under section 3.16 Land and Heritage Management Act.

  Determination: APPLICATION REFUSED

  What? His gaze stumbled over the words a second time before his brain comprehended their meaning. Refused? What on earth?

  Reason(s) for Refusal: Council has received submission from the public contesting the compatibility of the proposed reconstructions with the character of the local area, pursuant to blah blah blah …

  He stopped reading. This was nonsense; the character of the local area was currently being totally disfigured by the tacky seventies-era ply-and-glass shopfront. Which anyone with a particle of knowledge about Federation architecture would know.

  Surely he could object?

  He frowned down at the letter, brooding for a moment. He was out of his league dealing with bureaucracy and Land Management Acts and bullshit … but he knew someone who delighted in grinding up bureaucratic nonsense and sprinkling it on his cereal for breakfast: his old boss, Frank Gullo, loved and feared by building apprentices all over the southern outskirts of Sydney.

  He looked at his watch. Perfect time to call: jobs done for the day, Frank was probably sitting in his ute on his long commute home … just one of the things about Josh’s past life in Sydney which he in no way missed.

  ‘Mr Millimetre,’ he said, when the builder’s gravelled voice said hello. ‘How’s the hard worker?’

  ‘Josh, mate,’ said Frank, drawling out the word mate so long he must have covered a good hundred metres of freeway. ‘How the bloody hell are you?’

  ‘Good, mate, you?’

  ‘Busy. You ever get sick of shoving your hand up cow butts, you’ve got a job waiting for you here.’

  ‘Thanks, Frank. Me and the cows appreciate that. Listen, I need a favour.’

  ‘Here it comes,’ his former boss said. ‘Do I need a beer in my hand before you hit me up?’

  He grinned. ‘No, Frank, I don’t need a loan or a truckload of steel girders on the cheap. I need advice about a planning application.’

  ‘Yeah? You come to your senses and strapped on your old toolbelt, Josh?’

  ‘Sort of. My sister and I inherited a Federation three-storey building up here in Hanrahan. It had a bodgy storefront tacked onto the ground floor that I’m wanting to rip out so I can restore it to its former glory.’

  ‘Brick?’

  ‘Stone. The original quarry where the stones came from a century and a half ago isn’t far from here. I’m hoping I can match them.’

  ‘Sounds like quite a project.’

  ‘Yeah. Could be. Thing is, council just knocked me back.’

  ‘Typical. What’s the reason?’

  ‘A submission from someone who claimed the restoration wasn’t in keeping with the street.’

  ‘Sounds like a typical first salvo across the bows, Josh. Who was the objector?’

  ‘It doesn’t say.’

  ‘Go into council. That’s a matter of public record; they have to show you the objections submitted.’

  Huh. Well, that would be interesting.

  ‘Step one, mate,’ said Frank, ‘is make sure you object to their refusal by the due date. Step two, you send your original application to me and I’ll put some flesh on its bones. These desk jockeys in council like their steak cut up and their spuds mashed for them … I’ll give it a rewrite for you, use the lingo they’re used to.’

  ‘Frank, you’re the man.’

  ‘Yes I am. You take care, okay?’

  ‘You too.’

  Crap. What next, he wondered, would arrive to piss him off some more? Thank heavens for old mates with expertise.

  He peeled off his lab coat, gave his hands a sniff, and grimaced. Still bad. No-one needed to smell where his hands had been today. He stood at the sink letting hot water and antiseptic run over them while his thoughts settled.

  He wanted a beer, and food that had more love and care poured into it than a sixty-second whirl in a microwave. And—he could admit it—he had a weak-but-to-hell-with-it yearning to rest his eyes on Vera. What better time than now to start convincing her that he was the one? Besides, he hadn’t seen her since her aunt’s fall. It was his neighbourly duty to go and ask after her aunt, wasn’t it?

  Lucky for him, the woman he had the hots for worked in a café that offered dinner, so he could do all those three things at once. It was just a matter of maths, and he loved maths.

  ‘Or it’s a matter of desperation,’ he muttered to himself in the mirror as he washed up.

  Yeah. He had it bad for Vera. So what? It was his life, and if he wanted to have it bad for a prickly woman from out of town who barely seemed interested, then that was his choice, wasn’t it? Besides, after the kick in the teeth from the council rejection, he needed to see her more than he even needed that beer.

  He pulled his jacket off the coat hook and then heard the scampering claws of a dog on the floor.

  ‘Jane Doe.’

  She looked at his jacket, then she looked at the row of hooks on the wall where the dog lead was hanging.

  ‘Girlfriend, I’m sorry. They don’t allow dogs in The Billy Button Café. I’m going for a meal, not a quick drink. You’ll have to stay here.’

  Jane Doe sat down expectantly and extended her neck to let him know that slipping the catch onto her collar would be no trouble at all.

  Josh rolled his eyes. Now he was being guilt-tripped by a dog. ‘Did Poppy teach you that trick?’

  The dog’s tail beat a steady rhythm on the floor.

  ‘I don’t make the rules, Jane. What about a high-priced, organic roo-jerky treat instead?’

  He made his escape while Jane Doe hunkered onto the floor with a generous chunk of jerky between her front paws, and thought, not for the first time, how relieved he was that seven-year-old Parker hadn’t turned up yet to reclaim his pet.

  The park that separated the clinic from the café over on Paterson was quiet, and the breeze kicking up off the lake hadn’t got the memo that summer was only a month away. He stuffed his hands deep into his jacket pockets and kept his eyes on the lights of the café glimmering a golden welcome through its ornate windows.

  Marigold was floating about the inner room, her arms waving about as though she was conducting a symphony orchestra. Of course, Wednesday was craf
t night. Mr Juggins was there, and Vonnie from the supermarket … and was that Vera tucked into a corner stitching? He smiled. The babble of people relaxing together at the end of the day in a gracious old room that looked like a fancy parlour from an olden-day movie sounded exactly like what he was in the mood for. He eased his way in the door and was pounced on by Graeme.

  ‘Dr Handsome, welcome back. Dinner? A takeaway beef bourguignon pie? Or have you finally succumbed to the lure of Marigold’s Wednesday night craft group?’

  ‘Woah.’ He threw his hands up. ‘I’ve done my share of stitching today already. Dinner. A table for one.’

  Graeme looked at him as though he’d just shot the last Tasmanian tiger in captivity. ‘Josh, you disappoint me.’

  ‘I do?’

  The manager shook his bald head. ‘Single men never ask for a table for one. It’s a rule.’

  ‘Whose rule?’

  ‘It’s a law of the jungle type rule. Come. Sit at the counter.’

  The counter was perfect. He could see into the craft room and keep an eye on Vera there, and maybe start up a little conversation if she wandered over to the till. ‘Lead the way. Hey, I thought you didn’t work Wednesday nights.’

  ‘Roster changes,’ said Graeme. ‘For Alex, I mean. He’s on call nights this week.’

  Josh took a seat. A menu was propped up on the counter between a stone trinket box filled with Himalayan salt and a miniature pepper grinder, and on it he spied the magical word, beer.

  ‘What do you fancy?’ said Graeme.

  ‘Lasagne. Beer.’

  ‘The dinner of champions, excellent choice, mate.’

  ‘Make it a generous helping, would you? I’ve been living off my own cooking and it—’

  ‘Sucks?’

  Josh snorted, and grabbed the copy of the Snowy River Star tucked in amongst the serviettes and sauce on the end of the counter. Vera swished by behind him and he let his eyes rest on her for a long, wistful moment as she disappeared into the kitchen. ‘Does that sort of comment get you tips in the big city, Graeme?’

  ‘Everything gets me tips, Josh. I’m an operator.’

  ‘That’s the truth. How’s the house building coming along? You need a hand again, you let me know.’

  ‘Only if you promise to wear a toolbelt and strip down a few layers.’

  Josh laughed. ‘Does your boss know you flirt with customers in the café?’

  ‘Like you’re not a customer who’s come over here to lurk about in the hopes of having a little flirt with my boss,’ said Graeme, waggling his eyebrows in the direction of the kitchen doors Vera had just walked through.

  He lifted the stubby of lager Graeme had uncapped for him, and saluted with it. ‘Fair point.’

  Graeme tapped the dinner order into the tablet on the counter then lifted his head as the door opened to let in a guy dressed head to foot in motorcycle leathers. ‘Is that—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you smell smoke?’ Graeme’s nose was lifted into the breeze like a goanna who’d smelled a roast chicken.

  ‘No, I—’

  Wait. He did smell smoke. ‘Not the kitchen? That better not be the last of the lasagne burning. My need is great.’

  Graeme’s voice was grim. ‘Our kitchen’s not across the street out front. Something’s on fire. Let’s go, handsome. That’s building smoke, not food smoke.’

  Josh turned his thoughts away from dinner and headed out into the street. ‘Coffee king and smoke whisperer. You’re quite the expert, Graeme.’

  They stood on the corner of Paterson Street and Curlew and stared out into the night. Lights glimmered behind the upper storey windows in the old brick buildings. The moon was up, but hung low in the sky, sending silver rivers rippling down the mountains.

  The breeze that usually swept up off the lake and over the town had stilled but … there was something in the air, more of a taste than a smell.

  ‘Kids burning something in an alley?’ he muttered.

  A dull pop sounded above the moving cars on the street and the chatter reaching them from the busy café at their backs. A pop, then the unmistakable sound of shattering glass.

  ‘That way,’ said Graeme.

  That way was the way to the clinic. Josh stepped off the kerb and a fist of unease settled around him. He shook it off, but put a jog in his step. The clinic was barely two hundred metres from The Billy Button Café, but set back in its lot—he couldn’t see the building for the ancient alpine snow gum spreading its limbs in the park.

  Shit. Now he could really smell it, and the closer he got to home, the stronger it became. ‘Call 000,’ he said, and broke into a sprint.

  ‘I’m on it.’

  He covered the last fifty metres at a speed he’d not managed since Year Twelve, and what he saw when he reached the clinic had his fist of unease powering up to a sucker punch.

  A shattered plate glass mess covered the footpath and inside the Cody and Cody Vet Clinic’s reception room, blazing bright, roared a fire the size of a bull.

  Had Hannah returned from wherever she’d disappeared to and gone up to her apartment on the top floor?

  Jane Doe and her pups were in there. So was Harry Newell’s pet snake, a guinea pig called Porpoise, and an old and bitter cat with an attitude problem and more health problems than could fit on a standard Cody and Cody patient chart.

  He heard the whoop-whoop of sirens as he bashed his way in the side door to the back office, then frantic barks from Jane Doe in the sleepover room. Sisters first. Animals second. Thank heaven Poppy was in Sydney.

  ‘Hannah!’

  He roared out her name over and over as he pounded up the stairs. ‘Hannah! Hannah!’

  CHAPTER

  23

  Vera was hiding in the kitchen like a coward and she knew it. Cooling fruit buns could only be checked so many times, and the orders had thinned; no more lasagnes just cake and coffee requests, all of which could be handled out front.

  Dishwasher stacked, oven gleaming, knives sharper than an arctic breeze. She’d run out of excuses. She was going to have to go out there and say hi to Josh and try and untangle the mess she’d made of their date before her head split apart.

  Her aunt was in a coma, and she was about to drive two hundred clicks to face a magistrate. Her travel bag was packed for a two-night stay, she had a boot full of indexed facts and figures and affidavits, and all she could think about was the guy sitting in the second stool from the end at her café counter.

  She needed a clear head, and she wasn’t going to get one before she’d explained why she’d blown so cold after blowing so hot the day he was kind enough to take her for a horseride.

  She could make it brisk. Impersonal. Just stride out there to her front counter and say it. So, Josh, yeah. I’m facing a criminal charge and I’m about to drive to Queanbeyan and I may go to prison. Rescue the cat, will you, if I’m not back by Friday? Mrs Butler on the ground floor has a key.

  God, no. Josh, you’ve been kissing a jailbird. Thanks for the memories. Nope. That sounded like a country and western song no-one wanted to hear.

  She could always try the truth. She whispered the words to the refrigerator in a test run. ‘I’m a fool, Josh, and the last guy I was involved with took something from me when he betrayed my trust and started this whole chain of disasters that’s ended up with me shelling out a fortune in legal fees to stay out of prison. He took the part of me that could be with someone. He took my faith in humanity. And I don’t know if I’ll ever get that back. Even for a guy with kind eyes and a kiss factor that’s off the freaking charts.’

  Vera rested her head against the fridge, wishing the cold sheet of stainless steel could work its way inside her thoughts and chill them down, too.

  That was the problem. Well, one of them.

  Since those kind eyes had started looking in her direction … since she’d felt the brand of that kiss showing her a future she might have had if not for all the shitstorm brewing about her
…

  Her thoughts couldn’t settle. When she closed her eyes, Josh was there. Usually undressed, and there was a part of her that kept wondering would it hurt to sample just a teensy tiny bite of what he had to offer?

  She might not have a future, but she had a now, didn’t she?

  Josh deserved a future that she couldn’t give him, but damn it, she’d tried being noble and look where it had got her.

  The lonely voice inside her head kept workshopping scenarios in which it would be okay for her to be with Josh … to have him march on into the kitchen and haul her up against all that manly hotness like she was a souffle and he was her own personal white-hot ceramic dish.

  Just for a bit.

  Just until the preliminary hearing pinched away at all that was left of her.

  Maybe she could invite Josh over for a drink. He’d probably say no … she’d given him plenty of reasons to put her in the high-maintenance-blows-hot-and-cold basket, but …

  ‘Don’t say no,’ she murmured into the silent cool of the fridge door.

  ‘Vera? Are you okay?’

  Perfect. It would have to be the town’s self-appointed do-gooder, sticking her nose through the kitchen doors just while she was talking to herself about seducing the town vet. To the refrigerator. She was genuinely losing her marbles. Maybe it wasn’t too late to text her lawyer and throw in an insanity plea.

  She hauled open the fridge door and started clanking bottles of sauce around. She was a busy cook, not a loser who’d … well, lost it.

  ‘Marigold. You need something?’

  ‘Not sure, but Graeme and Josh just ran out of here and Graeme asked me to let you know. They can smell smoke. I’m heading out to see what’s up, and—’ Marigold broke off. ‘Can you hear a siren?’

  Vera reached up and killed the switch to the industrial exhaust rigged up over the grill, and into the silence fell the unmistakable noise of sirens. ‘They sound close. I’m coming. Let’s see what’s going on.’